A BIGGER Morrisons store complete with a first floor car park is far from being a 'fait accompli'.

That was the message delivered by Principal Planning Officer Martin Sellens to concerned residents at a public meeting in Horsforth this week.

Speaking to around 40 people in the Central Methodist Chapel in Town Street on Tuesday, Mr Sellens stressed that it was still 'early days' with the application - which would extend the Town Street store onto land currently owned by the Conservative Club.

And he reminded everyone there was still plenty of time to make their opinions count.

"If you still want to make representations about this application you can continue to do that right up until the day it actually goes before a panel," he told the meeting.

Pointing out that in terms of floor space the new store wouldn't be that much larger, he added: "The reason the new building is much bigger is that they want to improve a lot of the facilities around it, for example there will be a restaurant on the first floor and a substantially bigger warehouse.

"The store is within a town centre and probably nobody would deny that the existing store is looking very tired, is probably under utilised and that Horsforth deserves a better store.

"The question for us is what is the best way of extending it, and I am not convinced at the moment that this is the right solution.

"We've already raised some or our concerns with Morrisons, for example about parking, so we might be going back to them to ask them to look at it in a very different way - it is not a fait accompli."

Several Church Road and Southlands residents, whose view could change dramatically if the plans go ahead and the store moves towards them, were not reassured - and questioned why no-one from Morrisons was at the meeting.

One Church Road householder, who did not want to be named, also raised fears about 24 hour deliveries taking place at the new store.

"Currently Morrisons only have deliveries at sociable hours but that is based on a gentleman's agreement," he said.

"The plans mention 24 hour deliveries, but that is something we would want the planning committee to look at very seriously."

Another resident urged Mr Sellens to gain assurances from Morrisons that any building work would be kept to reasonable hours.

"We don't want to be woken up by a wrecking ball at 6am on a Sunday morning," he said.

City Councillor Brian Cleasby (Lib Dem, Horsforth), who chaired the meeting, said it was essential a balance was struck between the commercial needs of the superstore and the needs of the community.

"I've not met anybody who wants this first floor car park," he said.

"But let's try and work with Martin to scale things down so the plans are acceptable to us, and we can rejoice because we've got a good new store."

Fellow Liberal Democrat Councillor Andy Barker, meanwhile, wondered if new parking restrictions due to come into force on Town Street soon had been considered by those looking at the plans.

Assuring him that they had, Mr Sellens added that "between 50 and 100" letters of objection had been received over the expansion plans so far, and that the number was growing.

Several people suggested that the wasteland in front of the current store would be a much better site for Morrisons to expand onto than the Conservative Club.

But Mr Sellens said Morrisons had already talked to the landowners about that, without reaching an agreement.