PROPOSALS have been made to enhance and develop a Guisborough park rescued from the threat of bulldozers.

The area near Chapel Beck was spared last month when Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council acquired the former Blackett Hutton foundry to develop into offices. Had that purchase fallen through, the council's back-up plan involved the felling of trees at the Chapel Beck site to make way for a car park.

That idea met with strong opposition from local residents, who formed the Beck Side Protest Group. Its chairman, Ted Amos, addressed a meeting of Guisborough Town Council last Thursday night over the future of the area.

He said he had held a meeting with Dr Ashok Kumar, MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, and borough council leader Coun David Walsh. Suggestions included getting preservation orders for the trees in the park and extending Guisborough's conservation area to cover the beck.

Coun Brian Whiteley, chairman of the council, said: "It is quite important that we do get some sort of conservation scheme, and get planning permission for something in the future."

Borough councillor Keith Pudney reminded the meeting that planning consent on the beck referred only to the application by the council.

He said: "It doesn't have blanket planning consent - it never had and it never will."