The safety of young scouts could be put at risk by car parking arrangements at Yeadon's new health centre, it is being claimed.

Leaders of the 16th Airedale Scout Group say the proposed car parking arrangements will mean there will be no safe access to the main doorway for youngsters attending meetings.

And they say the assurances that there would be no car parking on the old Wesleyan graveyard have been broken in plans which have been submitted to Leeds City Council.

The £3.5m health centre was approved at a meeting in March - with the condition that 12 additional car parking places needed to be provided.

Members argued that the 54 car parking places already planned - partly on the nearby churchyard - were not enough.

The part two and part three storey centre at South View Road will replace Yeadon's outdated facilities on the same site. A temporary part single and part two storey building will be put on the nearby Methodist churchyard for up to 18 months while the centre is built.

Now an application to amend the existing planning approval has drawn a shocked response from objectors to the proposals.

Scout leader Brian Greenwood stressed: "As a scout group we are NOT against the new health centre as such, but we are still very much concerned about the plans for car parking etc... both during the temporary phase and for the final phase of the project."

He said: "It is proposed that health centre staff car parking, in a double row, will come right up to the east gable end of our building thereby allowing no safe access to our main doorway. We are obviously of the opinion that the safety of the members of our Group - as young as six-years-old - is more important than several car parking spaces."

He claimed that the new exit road and car parking would take up even more of the graveyard than originally agreed.

He added: "In general, we are concerned that the proposals for both the temporary and the permanent arrangements will mean a significant increase in the movement of traffic throughout the whole site.

"This would be detrimental to all of us and will cause us huge problems in having vehicular access to our HQ."

Mr Greenwood says the health centre plans would also deprive the town of the use of its only remaining piece of green space which is available for recreational activities.

And he said many locals had also been upset to see contractors digging deep holes in the graveyard.

"People knew nothing about it until they saw them digging," he said. "They were stood in up to their shoulders."

Now he is calling on local people to object to the new application which he says is due to go before planners on June 16.

A spokesman for the Leeds North West Primary Care Trust said: "The meeting in June relates to an application to amend the existing planning approval for the temporary accommodation that will be required to allow the new health centre to be developed.

"The new proposal is to locate the temporary accommodation on the existing church car park instead of the adjacent open space -- which is currently approved.

"As a result, the only incursion into the open space will now be in relation to the car parking and access road.

"The proposals is only possible because of the continuing support that the church has shown for the scheme and the acceptance that this later proposal, although disrupting their immediate car parking provision in the short term, will involve minimal use of the open space.

"The church has been keen to ensure that the access to their buildings -- which includes those of the scouts -- during this period of temporary works, will be safely maintained.

The access provisions for the scouts that will be made under the final build solution will be put in place for the period the temporary accommodation is in place. Consultations with the church and Leeds City Council planners is still ongoing on this issue.

"The investigation works that have recently been carried out in the vicinity are related to the construction of the Yeadon Enhanced Primary Care Centre car park and access road to establish that the proposed construction works can be properly and safely carried out."