In the current recession, local businesses need all the help they can get. In Saltaire they are handicapped by the lack of a tourist information centre.

As a World Heritage Site, the village should be ideally placed to benefit from the fact that fewer people will be travelling abroad next summer, deterred by the falling value of the pound and the general uncertainty.

Yet at a time when it needs to take advantage of the economic ill wind that might well blow it a bit of good, Saltaire seems destined to be without a crucial facility which would help it to maximise the opportunities.

The revelation that it will be at least a year before the TIC is established in the former Salts Mill dining room in Victoria Road is a bitter blow for traders who need the boost it could provide, not only directly to the Saltaire economy, but also to other tourist spots around the district by helping to publicise them.

There is clearly a need for such a facility now. It seems frankly astonishing that a temporary TIC cannot be provided somewhere within the village until funds can be secured to create the proposed permanent new centre. It could be up and running very quickly.

After all, how much effort would it take to place two tables with leaflets and a telephone in an empty corner with some temporary signs pointing towards them?