THIS is the news York needed to hear. With the city still reeling from the Terry's closure announcement, the university revealed that its expansion will create 4,500 jobs.

Many more spin-off jobs are also expected to follow as the number of students increases by a third in the next decade.

Although clearly a major boost for York, not everyone will be celebrating. Heslington villagers are understandably concerned about the impact of such ambitious plans on their doorstep.

The university must listen and respond to these worries, and work with their neighbours as the plans progress.

But the wider city too has demonstrated an ambivalent attitude to York University. There are reasons for this. Launched a mere 41 years ago, the institution is a relative newcomer to a city suspicious of change, compared, say, to more than two centuries of Terry's. Its campus is away from the city centre, and the students are largely outsiders.

The doubters should turn these facts around. It is astonishing that York boasts one of Britain's top universities after only four decades. And students import talent, energy and fun, not to mention wealth.

The university was the most important single development in post-war York. It injected new life and a forward-looking focus to a city in danger of stagnating in a pool of past glories.

More recently its commercial arm has brought us the Science Park and numerous thriving small businesses. This has offset the decline in traditional manufacturing industries, and put York on the world map for a reason other than tourism.

York's prosperity is bound to the university. The expansion should be embraced - its success is our success.

Updated: 09:53 Friday, April 30, 2004