WEST Dorset District Council’s executive committee has agreed to lease the site for Lyme Regis’s new skate park to the town council – but for a charge of £2,000 a year.

Members of the committee approved a 20-year lease for the area of Charmouth Road car park to enable the skate park project to move ahead.

The move will result in the loss of 35 car parking spaces and to compensate for the loss of income Lyme Regis Town Council will have to pay an annual rate of £2,000 – which will be increased annually in line with inflation.

As the issue was discussed by the committee, members of the public attending the meeting held aloft posters saying: ‘Four words from the kids of Lyme Regis – please and thank you’.

There were concerns at the meeting that the town council had been led to believe the land would be transferred free of charge.

Local district councillor George Symonds said: “There wasn’t anything coming from this council to say there was going to be a charge or wasn’t going to be a charge.”

Cllr Symonds said the cost of the whole project was expected to be in the region of £150,000.

Council leader Anthony Alford said he believed the charge being imposed by the district council was ‘modest’ and went some way to compensating it for the loss of income from the parking spaces. would generate.

He said: “There clearly would be a financial consequence to this council for handing these over for the use as a skate park.

“It doesn’t seem to me to be unreasonable to ask for compensation for that loss of income we would suffer.

“It’s just to replace what we would otherwise have reasonably generated.

“This is a project that we support and we would like to see the town council see it through to fruition.”

Committee members stressed they were in favour of the skate park project and were keen to see it go ahead, and hoped it would be as successful as the skate park in Dorchester.

Cllr Mary Penfold added: “We applaud the efforts that have gone into getting the skate park this far.”

Cllr Alan Thacker said he hoped the Lyme Regis skate park would replicate the success of the one installed in Dorchester.

He said: “The Dorchester site is extremely well used, it’s very popular and it’s a great facility.

“I would certainly like to see the same in Lyme Regis.”