SETTLE will have a new Booth's supermarket by the millennium and a new primary school soon after.

Craven District Council's planning committee gave officers delegated authority to approve the foodstore chain's plans to build a supermarket on land at Sowarth Industrial Estate and Bond Lane field - a compromise scheme that leaves more open space on Bond Lane than previous plans for a supermarket and school.

This means North Yorkshire County Council will be able to use the money from the sale of Bond Lane to build a much-needed new primary school for the town.

It is hoped the school will open in September 2001.

The decision signals almost the end of the now infamous "store wars" which have gripped the North Craven town for two years.

However, a planning inspector still has to hear an inquiry into applications refused earlier from Yorkshire Cooperatives to build a supermarket on land at Ashfield, and from Booths for Bond Lane.

The inquiry, if it goes ahead, is scheduled to run from May 27-29 and June 30-July 3.

Donald Clark, architect for Booths, said: "Obviously we are pleased. This has taken a long, long time and we think the whole thing will be of great benefit to Settle.

"There is a genuine desire to proceed with the hybrid scheme and we hope to agree with North Yorkshire to abandon the appeal."

Ian Parker, headteacher of Settle Primary School, said he was guardedly optimistic, and hoped a new school might open before 2001.

He said: "We are hopeful that everything will go ahead as quickly as possible.

"We really need a new school and while we appreciate it can't be done tomorrow, we will be pushing for it to be done as soon as possible."

Following Monday's decision, Yorkshire Cooperatives announced its intention to improve its Settle store.

"We will be spending some money in our existing store and substantially enhancing it, now we know we are almost certainly staying there," Tony Henry, chief executive of Yorkshire Cooperatives told the Herald.

"We need to take stock of one or two things. We have not yet decided what to do. At this moment we are not withdrawing the appeal. It is now unlikely that we shall do the extension at the existing store and car park that were proposed."

The decision was greeted with dismay by objectors to the plans, led at Monday's meeting by Helen Lupton, of Constitution Hill.

"We think a supermarket will kill off Settle centre," she said.

And she said arrangements should be made so the public could use whatever space was left at Bond Lane after the school and supermarket were built.

Chairman of Settle Chamber of Trade, Peter Thackrah, was also disappointed and feared for the future vitality of the town centre.

"I think people will go there, do their shopping and go away," he said.

"The car park is going to be right next to the school playground and you will have all the exhaust fumes drifting across.

"There's a lot of people against it, but they haven't written in.

" You have got to write in if you object, and that is where they slipped up."

The planning meeting heard from a number of people, including Coun Ron Maude, of Settle Town Council, who told how the council voted in favour of the compromise scheme.

Mr Clark outlined Booth's application, a "genuine attempt at compromise", which combined land belonging to Stan Jordan at Sowarth, Bond Lane field and the embankment in between.

Coun Beth Graham said: "There is perhaps a more silent group of people who are very much in favour of this.

"This plan goes a long way to meeting some of the objections of retaining as much open space and playing space as possible."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.