SKIPTON Gateway project is not going to be quite as it was hoped.

It was the former Craven District Council and North Yorkshire Council when we first heard about the regeneration of Skipton Railway station and the area around it, only then it was called the wider employment and growth project.

The railway station, one of the busiest in North Yorkshire, was going to get an overhaul, it's somewhat sad entrance smartened up and it's car park redesigned.

There was going to be pedestrian routes to the town centre and to Aireville Park, to cater for all the school children and students heading over to that side of town.

It was all linked into Engine Shed Lane where the former Craven Council built its replacement waste centre, and crucially involved an extension to Ings Lane and Engine shed lane to the A629 bypass.

Now, we hear rising costs have meant a scaling down of the whole project, although it has been said, it will be finished at a later date.

So, what do we have? Black Walk, from the station to the town centre will be upgraded and the path to Aireville Park, but it seems work at the railway station has been put on hold. To put on hold that which most would surely think would be the main focus of the whole project seems a bit odd. Perhaps it has something to do with the cost of carrying out the work outside the hours when the station is at its busiest.

As for the road to the bypass which was going to remove all the heavy traffic from the town centre, that seems to have come to a grinding halt.