THE financial plight of higher education providers in the UK is well known.

Most colleges are having to rely on running at virtually full capacity just to break even, and such precarious conditions make it hard to plan ahead.

So when Trinity and All Saints College stresses the importance of creating new student accommodation as part of its long term strategy, it deserves to be taken seriously. It would be in no-one's interests, certainly not the people of Horsforth's, to see the college, a major employer in the area, fail.

But while nobody would argue with the need for new, modern student homes on the campus, the local community has been baffled at the college's decision to base the 168 flats on playing fields off Westbrook Lane.

Given the 40 acres Trinity and All Saints owns around its nucleus campus it would be hard to think of a more contentious spot.

Set away from the main part of the campus and next to Westbrook Primary School, the chosen location begs all kinds of questions about increased traffic and the consequences of creating a split campus.

But what has really angered locals is that this is prime, outdoor sports land which the college seems determined to concrete over - and the fear is that other, adjacent land could then go to housing, too.

The college is technically correct to point out that outline planning permission to create accommodation on the plot was given years ago, and the land was re-designated in the Leeds Unitary Development Plan for housing.

But the Government's whole planning direction nowadays points towards using brown field sites, not green, wherever possible.

Given that policy, and the fact nearly 300 of its neighbours are unhappy, the college should at least try to explain its contentious decision to those it will affect.

That is why Leeds planners should be applauded for insisting real talks between the two parties take place before the flats plan can progress.