North Yorkshire should become a single authority if a referendum votes in favour of a regional assembly, the local authority has said.

Rather than disappearing to be replaced by other authorities within an assembly, the county council is determined to survive and insists it should become a unitary body.

Yesterday, the council agreed to make a submission to the Boundary Committee calling for the authority to stay intact, instead of being broken up into separate authorities.

Council leader John Weigh-ell said: "We believe that people have strong affection for this beautiful county of ours.

"To chop it up into two or three artificial authorities would create more bureaucracy and cost more.

"We already deliver services at a local level and under our plans the market towns will certainly be the focus for people to access services easily.

"By staying together North Yorkshire will be stronger and would certainly carry more clout within any new regional assembly."

Councillors believe that becoming a single unitary authority - replacing the districts - would keep costs to a minimum and reduce disruption to taxpayers.

They said it would also ensure a strong rural voice within an assembly which would be dominated by urban authorities, strengthen local democracy and accountability and promote stronger partnerships.

The county council delivers services which account for 85 per cent of local government spending in North Yorkshire, in particular education, social care and maintaining the highways network.

And members claim that by becoming a unitary authority it would provide greater economies of scale as well as having a stronger identity.

"Providing consistent and good quality public services is more expensive in thinly populated areas," said Councillor Weighell. "The county council has the capacity to do this and we succeed in doing so, day in and day out.

"Developing North Yorkshire as a unitary council is not a barrier to local services and local accountability. It would in fact reinforce the strong community identity we already have rather than creating artificial sub-divisions."

While 32 country councillors voted for a unitary authority, 19 voted against, including most of the Liberal- Democrat group.

Its leader Caroline Seymour said: "We are concerned that a unitary county would reduce considerably the number of elected councillors and thus their ability to represent their local communities."