“If you’re going to dream, dream big.” So goes the popular saying but it is a motivational message that’s certainly not needed by the volunteers behind Otley’s ambitious Chevin Olympic Park bid.

Their plan involves building a first class sporting hub – including cycle and running tracks, all-weather floodlit pitches, athletic areas and more – that would represent a truly fitting Olympics and Tour de France legacy. The obvious potential fly in the ointment, of course, is money.

To try to create a multi-sports centre of excellence that, in its entirety, is likely to cost £5 million would be a tough enough challenge in any year. In 2014, with the economy still limping rather than skipping back to some kind of health, it appears a tall order indeed.

But now that the proposed site for the park has been revealed it is hard not to share the steering committee’s optimism that this significant hurdle can be cleared. The playing fields in question, beside Wharfemeadows Park, offer simply terrific views of the Chevin to one side and open countryside and wooded hills to the other.

And just looking around from the plot, it is hard to imagine a more motivational local spot for athletes and sportsmen and women to train at.

Of course there will be other obstacles to clear on the path to making this sporting ideal a reality – not least, perhaps, in addressing concerns from householders who live beside the main access road (off Farnley Lane) and may have justifiable worries about noise and disturbance.

The project’s steering committee, however, have to date shown themselves to be approaching things in a very professional and careful manner, and acknowledged this week that the facilities may have to be added in phases to spread the cost. That bodes well for the scheme’s future and suggests they will consult properly with all those concerned.

We hope so. Because, with all the goodwill that has continued since London 2012 – including Lizzie Armitstead’s success – and the building buzz about Le Tour coming to town, this feels like a dream that deserves to become a reality.

A plane relief

There are definite advantages to living close to an airport – making it so much easier to arrange holidays and business travel.

But, as many Horsforth residents have found to their cost, the downside of the equation can be traffic.

For years people living around Bayton Lane, Brownberrie Lane and Scotland Lane have endured speeding traffic, some of which is rushing to and from the airport. Clearly not all of the traffic will be connected to the airport, but local councillors are convinced that an element is.

So it will come as a relief to residents to know that £30,000 is to be spent on slowing down cars on the three roads.

The money, from the Outer North West Area Committee, will pay for a drop in the speed limit and to introduce traffic calming measures.

With airport passenger numbers continually growing, it is clearly even more pressing that the issue of speeding traffic should be tackled.

When drivers have a plane to catch they could well be tempted to drive at a speed which is not suitable, particularly for roads in residential areas. So anything which can be done to ease the situation for local people has to be welcomed.