WAITING in leaky bus shelters and trying to read vandalised and sometimes non-existent timetables is the experience of many Skipton bus station users.

And Sutton-in-Craven resident Christiane Burns wants the authorities to stop dragging their heels and give the Keighley Road station a much needed overhaul.

Fifty-eight-year-old Mrs Burns only moved to the area in the summer, but uses the station at least once a week.

She catches the bus from Sutton and then transfers to a bus, which drops her off near Sawley Street where she helps out at the Craven Furniture Scheme.

She told the Herald: "The first time I saw the bus station I thought 'Oh, my God, is this it?' I was quite shocked actually. I love Skipton and I love Sutton and to me this is the only blot on the landscape."

She criticised the bus shelters, many of which leak in bad weather, and lack of information. Some of the timetables at the bus stands have been defaced and she said better security was needed to stop young people hanging around.

"If you miss your bus you either go into the Co-op or you stand in a cold, draughty bus station," Mrs Burns said.

She compared the facility to Keighley Bus Station, which has seen a multi-million pound transformation in recent years. Passengers now have an indoor waiting area with toilets, shop, information point and televised timetables.

"I'm not saying they should do it exactly like Keighley, but then again this is a market town attracting visitors," she said.

Mrs Burns, who lives at Yeadon House, said the council needed to be pushed to get on with the project, which has been in the pipeline for many years.

She said she had found the recent "pie in the sky" talk of high-rise car parks (in Craven District Council's Skipton Developments plans) outrageous and thought it should be concentrating on sprucing up the bus station.

"Why should we have to make do with a third class type bus station?"

Mrs Burns is registered disabled and gets about with the help of a walking frame. She said she would like to see some kind of ramp over the canal so that people, like herself, did not have to go the long way around to Tesco.

Skipton bus station has been earmarked for an improvement scheme, but the timescale has not yet been decided.

A proposal to completely rework it was included in North Yorkshire County Council's first Local Transport Plan (LTP), published in 2000.

That allocated £100,000 for the scheme to be carried out between 2001 and 2006, but it was soon decided that would not be enough and a bid for £450,000 was made to central Government.

Craven District Council, which owns the bus station, has been told the scheme will now be carried forward into the second Local Transport Plan (LTP2) and would have to go through another prioritisation process.

The second plan covers the five year period from 2006 and in the worst case scenario Skipton bus station would not be looked at until 2011.

The outcome of this funding prioritisation process is likely to be within the next month.