AN ADVENTURE training company which hosted a controversial team-building weekend for senior council officers opened its assault course and paintball area without planning permission.

Richmondshire District Council was unaware of the breach of planning regulations when it booked 11 top officials, including its head of planning, on to a two-day course earlier this year.

However, once there, they discovered that Adrenalin (NY) had developed the assault course, task solving area, paintball site, car park and reception building without the necessary planning consent.

Now retrospective applications have been submitted to the council, seeking backdated permission for the development on the Aske Estate, near Richmond.

The authority was the target of public outcry when it emerged that thousands of pounds of public money had been spent on the adventure weekend.

A report to the council's environment committee on Tuesday points out that two approved paintball sites already exist in the area - at Sedbury Park, near Scotch Corner, and at Dalton-on-Tees.

An application for a similar development at Gilling Wood, near the Adrenalin site, was turned down by the council in 1991 when members considered it out of keeping with its rural surroundings.

The council has yet to hear officially the views of English Heritage and the Countryside Agency but the report recommends conditional planning permission should be granted if the two organisations raise no strong objections.

Such a move would also be subject to relocation of five timber structures, designed for problem solving exercises, in the Temple area of the estate. Planners suggest they should be moved nearer to the Black Plantation area, where the assault course and paintball area are located.

An advertising sign in the Black Plantation area, the subject of a separate application, is likely to have to be removed after planners ruled it was intrusive in the countryside.

Harry Tabiner, the council's chief executive, said: "It wasn't until officers went on the team building exercise at Adrenalin that we were aware the structures had been built, nor would we have been, bearing in mind they are on a private estate, shielded from the road by dense woodland.

"However, as soon as we became aware that planning permission had not been sought, we asked the company responsible to rectify the situation by submitting a planning application in the correct manner."

The application was to have been decided by officers under delegated powers but Coun Tony Pelton asked for the item to go before the committee for a decision.

"I felt that councillors should decide on this application rather than officers, who could be left open to possible accusations," he said. "It was a case of just being correct so there could be no allegations levelled at officers.