West Dorset District Council is set to run Monmouth Beach car park in Lyme Regis for another three years.

The move will save £93,000 and safeguard the future of the resort’s tourist information centre and toilets, Lyme town councillors were told.

But they want to start negotiating the handover back to the town council in 2015 within the next few months.

At a strategy and policy meeting members agreed it was more important to safeguard the TIC and toilets and avoid the £93,000 penalty for not renewing the car park lease.

Coun Michaela Ellis sounded a note of caution and voted against the plan.

She said: “How sure are we that West Dorset District Council will not come back in three years time and bend our arm with another reason to keep the car park? We cannot be sure of that.

“In three years the world will have changed and they could be back to us with another armhold. Even if we take the car park and have to pay the £93,00, even if we were cost neutral and didn’t make a penny we would still have half a million pounds in the next two years that we would not have had.”

But other councillors said securing a guarantee that the same level of service at the TIC and toilets would remain for the next three years was vital to a resort that depended so heavily on tourism.