Traders have embraced a bid to bring the speed boats of Windermere Records Week on to Coniston to accelerate flagging winter trade.

At a packed Coniston Parish Council meeting on Monday, residents voted 53 to eight in favour of staging the event on the normally placid waters of Coniston Water between October 31 and November 3.

The session was part of a consultation over the proposal which the Lake District National Park Authority will rule on in May.

It follows an application from Records Week organisers to switch venue for the 35-year-old competition that attracts hundreds of power boaters to challenge British and world speed records. It comes in the wake of the new 10mph speed limit on Windermere.

"I would hope this would be supported by some other business owners," urged Coniston's postmaster Philip Glennon, who warned that the village risked "falling asleep" if people did not support events to tempt visitors.

"If footfall doesn't increase in the next three to five years there will be no post office, that is a fact. This event is at a time when business is absolutely dead after half term."

Resident Jeff Carroll further proffered support as a means to celebrate Donald Campbell, the famous speed ace who set successive world water speed records on Coniston in his boat Bluebird in the 50s and 60s.

"We are spending about £1million of lottery money on celebrating Coniston's speed record history to put Bluebird on display here. I think it would be absolutely hypocritical to turn round and say we don't want Records Week here.

"What better way to celebrate that history and focus people on coming to see the Campbell exhibition than having it here? For one week of the year, for a professionally organised event that's got all the safety you need, I don't see there's a problem."

There was also backing from the chair of governors at Coniston's John Ruskin School who said the children were excited at the prospect of such an event.

Meanwhile, LDNPA recreation adviser Carrissa Lough sought to answer fears that Records Week would herald the permanent return of speed boats to Coniston.

Any bid to continue a Coniston Records Week' after 2005 would need a fresh application to the authority and the 10mph by-law would be enforced as it always had outside the event, she assured.

The authority's ecologist was also content that the wash from racing boats for such a short event was equivalent to an occasional storm or high winds and did not pose an environmental threat. It was also outside the breeding season for birds and the resting period for winter fowl.

But there was still opposition, particularly over noise.

Stella DeGruchy, whose home overlooks the lake, asked if the LDNPA had considered the disruption to Coniston residents in suggesting the event should move from Windermere to allow its speed limit to "bed-in".

Ms Lough replied that the LDNPA had not considered the proposal or its impacts yet. It was simply consulting people like Coniston residents before determining the application.

Supporter Mr Carroll said the noise had to be put in context and joked that the RAF could be invited to drown out the powerboats with some low flying.

"The noise is not going to be beyond people's tolerance. I think we should embrace it for the first year. If it's not a success there's the opportunity to stop it happening next year."

l The LDNPA implementation committee will make its decision in May. Anyone who would like to comment can write to Carrisa Lough by the end of March at LDNPA, Murley Moss Business Park, Oxenholme Road, Kendal, Cumbria LA9 7RL.