South Lakeland District Council has decided not to spend £60,000 of its £686,000 windfall from second homes council tax on a skate park in the area.

Instead, SLDC's cabinet agreed that the whole of the £856,000 second homes money realised by shrinking the council tax discount on holiday homes, should be ring-fenced for affordable housing schemes.

Conservative councillor Kevin Wilkinson said he was in favour of building a skate park for local youngsters but funding should not come from the second homes windfall. The project would have to stand or fall on its merits alongside the council's other schemes in next year's Capital programme, he said.

SLDC's direct share of the second homes money is only £200,000, but Cumbria County Council decided to give SLDC all the money generated by second homes in the district - £856,000. But SLDC is duty bound to consult the Local Strategic Partnership on its spending plans for the money. SLDC's cabinet had recommended spending most of the cash on housing, save for the £60,000, but the LSP - a collective of councillors and community representatives - told the council it did not consider a skate park to be an "appropriate" use of the funds. It wanted to see all the cash ploughed back into housing.

At an earlier full council debate, councillors supported a motion put forward by Liberal Democrat Coun Brendan Jameson backing a skatepark and other facilities for youngsters by recommending the authority source "as a matter of urgency" other monies, not cash from the second homes windfall.

But there was an angry response to another motion by his Lib Dem colleague Tim Farron.

Coun Farron urged fellow councillors to re-emphasise the council's commitment to using second homes cash for affordable homes.

"Our communities are suffering a housing crisis due to second home ownership and inflated house prices leaving local people unable to afford to live locally," he said. "Tackling this problem should be the council's number one priority.

"How we vote on this motion will speak volumes to the public. Do we care enough to invest all the money available to us on affordable housing projects?"

But Labour's Charles Batteson said the motion did nothing to complement council policy since affordable housing already was its priority.

The combined votes of the Labour and Conservative benches and one Lib Dem councillor threw out the motion. Coun Farron complained that an "unholy alliance" of Labour and Conservative had stifled debate.