A building company is in talks with Bradford Council about plans to build homes near the site of the famous Cottingley Fairies.

But the developer today allayed fears over the plans which have emerged just days before a film about the famous hoax sighting is given a British premiere in Bradford.

Queensbury-based Patchett Homes, which has owned the land for years, says it is now considering submitting an outline application for housing on the site.

But Charles Patchett today suggested that the tree-lined Cottingley Beck could be developed into a 'woodland walk' within the development, with access for tourists and local nature lovers.

The idea was welcomed by Cottingley post mistress Helen Rooney who said she favoured the idea of a fairy-inspired nature trail.

The quiet wooded area - which lies at the end of back gardens in Cottingley Main Street - is expected to become a magnet for tourists when the long-awaited new film Fairy Tale - a True Story goes on general release on February 13.

The movie, starring Harvey Keitel and Peter O'Toole, tells how schoolgirls Frances Griffiths and Elsie Wright hoaxed the world in 1917 by faking photographs of fairies.

At the moment anyone interested in following in their footsteps has to scramble down a muddy, litter-strewn bank.

Access could be improved.

Mrs Rooney said: "At the moment it is just an absolute mess. I get a trickle of American and Japanese tourists, but when the film comes out it could be much more.

"A nature trail around here would be really good. People would prefer that to having houses right up to the Beck.'

Developer Charles Patchett explained that plans were at an early stage. He could not say how many homes he planned to build on the four acre site (the size of four football pitches). Cottingley Beck itself would be protected. He pledged: "We will not desecrate the site. The woodland around the beck has a tree preservation order on it in any case. A woodland walkway is not impossible to see."

Dorothy Yeadon, secretary of Cottingley Community Association, said today that many villagers already knew that land near the Cottingley Fairies site was owned by a housing company.

"People are aware that houses could be built there.

"There might be some protests but not that much. It's very overgrown where it all happened.

"People have known it's there but it's only with this film coming out that there has been all this attention on it."

Annette Middlemas, of Bradford Council planning department, confirmed: "There is a site allocated for housing in the unitary development plan near Cottingley Beck, but the plan also allows for a recreation area immediately around the beck itself."

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