The dozens of angry people who crammed into Rawdon Littlemoor Primary School's tiny main hall to protest against plans to rebuild it on playing fields off the A65 were adamant that it would mean even more traffic on the already busy main road.

Rat running would also result and children would be forced to cross busy roads, they added. They didn't want the school there - but where do they want it?

The school and its governors have been waiting for 20 years for a new school. At one time, the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, promised a new school - although she didn't say exactly when. Now one is to be built, everyone wants it, but 'not there thank you'.

No site will ever be perfect. Wherever it is, there will be more traffic. Land will be lost and some people will be inconvenienced. Those used to looking on to open fields will be faced with school buildings and playgrounds.

But Rawdon needs and deserves a new school. How many schools can claim they had outside toilets until just four years ago and have a main hall barely big enough to hold just half its roll? The playing fields will not be lost, they will be upgraded and Rawdon people will be provided with new community facilities. An,d in the future, public meetings at the school might be blessed with a bigger hall.

Sainsbury's has been given permission to build a new store in Otley. It has been told that the car park must be free for four hours - to give shoppers plenty of time to do their supermarket shop and then go out into the town.

It has been one of the main concerns from those against the scheme, that the new store would sap trade from the town centre shops and not just Safeway's. A four-hour free car park, it is believed, will act as a draw for people to shop in Sainsbury's and then take their wallets off around the town. Only time will tell.

Hopefully, the condition will be written in stone and stuck to the front of the new store - so in the years to come when Sainsbury's applies for an amendment of planning conditions, the people of Otley can point to it and remind Sainsbury's of its pledge.