A REFERENDUM is to be held to give residents at the Lizard the chance to decide the fate of part of their village green.

It is hoped the move will bring to a close months of wrangling over the land, which has been at the centre of a bitter row over wider regeneration plans for the village.

A £2.4 million scheme drawn up over several years has now been abandoned, but no firm decision has yet been taken on whether one part of the scheme, which involves stopping cars parking on the small green and turning the land into a permanent open space, will still go ahead.

Landewednack parish council, which owns the green, has now decided to canvas public opinion in a ballot to be run by Kerrier district council at the Reading Room.

Council chairman Ron Lyne said: "The parish council can't say 'let's close the small green because that's what people want'. Parishioners must decide for themselves whether we should go forward, or leave it alone. If they say 'no', then that's the end of it."

Mr Lyne said a postal ballot had been considered, but an "election-style" referendum, at a date yet to be determined, had been favoured by the majority of councillors.

The original regeneration scheme involved banning parking from the small green, work on the large green - where parking would still have been allowed - and creating a new car park and community building in a field at the entrance to the village.

Although the external funding pledged to the wider scheme has now been lost, the £10,000 set aside by the parish council towards the project could be used to fund the work on the small green. A county council application for consent for the work was supported following a public inquiry in the village last October.