A bid to stage Windermere Records Week on the normally placid waters of Coniston is making waves.

Organisers of the 35-year-old event, which annually draws hundreds of powerboaters to challenge speed records on Windermere, have formally applied to shift the competition to its neighbouring lake on October 23.

The proposal to the Lake District National Park Authority has been prompted by Windermere's looming 10mph speed limit, which comes into force in March.

Park officials could temporarily waive the limit to allow the week of racing. However, the event's organisers have been told that permission would probably not be forthcoming for 2005 in order to let the 10mph limit bed in.

Instead, Records Week backers hope to take advantage of a clause in a Coniston Water by-law that was written with speed ace Donald Campbell in mind.

To sanction attempts to challenge Campbell's 260mph record clinched on Coniston in 1959, the regulations allow the LDNPA to lift the normal 10mph limit for "any person undertaking an attempt on a British, national or world water speed record".

LDNPA lawyers have interpreted that as allowing not just one-off individual record attempts but also an event like Records Week.

Park authority spokesman Mick Casey said the LDNPA had begun consultations with lake users, local residents and Coniston Parish Council. He said a report would then go to the authority's implementation committee in May for members to make their ruling.

Meanwhile, in Coniston, the prospect of daredevil powerboat aces racing up and down has been greeted with both horror and enthusiasm.

"It will be a split as these things usually are," said Coniston Parish Council clerk Chas Sergeant. "There are those that see it as an extension to the tourist season that will encourage return business for the shops and B&Bs but there is concern from lake users."

Some lake users have indicated there could be a way to accommodate the speed boat fraternity for just one week.

Norman Beech, the centre manager at Torver-based Birmingham University Outdoor Pursuits Centre, said: "It all depends on the timing and to what extent the whole lake is tied up."

But others have argued for the preservation of Coniston as "the quiet lake".

"We have five outdoor pursuit centres with kiddies learning to sail, we have a company that hires out canoes and the boating centre hiring electric launches and they don't mix with speeding power boats," said Coniston lake warden Ian Stancliffe. "It's a narrow lake, the maximum width is half-a-mile at the very most. Anything rushing about at speed closes the lake for everybody because of the wash. There are people with moorings who pay quite a lot of money for them. It's not on if they can't use the water for a week."

There are also fears that embracing records week could encourage Windermere's powerboat refugees to adopt Coniston as their now home.

"It's the thin end of the wedge," warned Mr Stancliffe. "Once they start coming for records week we could find they start coming every week."

l Coniston and Torver residents have been invited to a Coniston Parish Council meeting on February 21, at 7pm, in the Institute Library, to air their views after a talk from an LDNPA official.