WORRIED councillors voted to depart from tradition and leave responsibility for a new play area on a planned housing estate in the hands of a management company which could turn it into a private park.

Bedale town councillors were concerned that children from outside the proposed new Lyngarth development in South End could be stopped from playing on the site's play area.

The authority is already responsible for several play areas in the town, including the Southfields estate, next to where Persimmon want to build 79 houses on the Lyngarth site. They have spent thousands of pounds trying to sort out flooding problems on the Southfields play area which was also built by Persimmon.

Representatives from the builders told the council a management company could be appointed to look after the play area when the site is finished. It would be managed by a non-profit company who charge the residents an annual fee to run it, but because the site has 40 per cent affordable homes, they said there could be problems over finances and the play area would not be open to everyone.

Cllr Malcolm Young said: "I don’t want to see kids stopped from going on it because it is private. All it takes if for one person to be really upset about it and it could cause problems.”

Cllr Mike Barningham said it could effectively become a private play area. Initially the council had thought they would take over responsibility for the park, until councillors from other areas revealed they had agreed management companies should run new parks.

Cllr Amanda Coates added: "You are not going to have a lot of people going down there to be honest, I don’t think it is going to be a problem.”

But Cllr Clive Pointon warned: "In effect it isn’t going to be public open space because it isn’t necessarily going to be open to the public. Someone could say we are paying for it, we don’t want anybody else on it.

"And one thing which could be controversial, should those houses if they are paying a management fee, be paying the same amount of precept as other people in the town? ”

Cllr Coates said if they didn’t pay the same amount of precept then they shouldn’t really be able to use Bedale Park.

Cllr John Noone said other towns, including Easingwold and Northallerton, were going down the route of having management companies running play areas on new developments.

”It is to save the town Council having the responsibility of another play park,” he added.