A COUNCIL which has warned that frontline services will be stripped to the bone after axing hundreds of staff due to Government cutbacks has been condemned after proposing to spend £360,000 to partly host an international cycling race.

North Yorkshire County Council’s executive have been recommended to approve handing £180,000-a-year for the hosting fee for the Tour de Yorkshire race and the authority’s associated costs.

A meeting of the council’s leading group on Tuesday will hear the authority used £300,000 left over from the Tour de France in 2014 to fund its staging of the first two editions of the Tour de Yorkshire.

The investment has seen the county handed 45 per cent of the race route in 2015 and 67 per cent this year. Major boosts for the area’s economy, and in particular the key sector of tourism, have followed the race, which is televised in 178 countries and generates media coverage estimated to be worth £116m.

An officers’ report to the meeting recommends giving £100,000-a-year to race co-organisers Welcome to Yorkshire as long as half the race’s route for next year and 2017 is in North Yorkshire and £160,000 be set aside to cover the authority’s costs, from its strategic capacity reserve.

It states: “Hosting a cycle race is not a core function or statutory duty of the council. It can be argued the event is in effect a luxury item when reductions in funding and resource have been made on other council services.”

In April, the Conservative-run authority revealed it had axed 900 jobs in the past four years as part of a drive to cut £166m from its budget between 2011 and 2020.

Following cuts to services such as libraries, its leaders have warned of “inevitable changes to frontline services”, while pledging they would strive to protect vulnerable people.

Liberal county councillor John Clark said given the severe cutbacks to services, the proposal was “a disgrace”.

“Vulnerable people are not getting the support they need and to be cutting that further to support a cycling race is appalling£, he said. “Maybe we should be putting money into a tour de nursing homes to see what is going wrong.”

Council leader Carl Les said the money had been set aside due to the authority’s prudence and there were many priorities it had to consider.

He said: “We have a duty to the businesses in North Yorkshire to promote it as a popular place for people to visit.

“This is not just an investment for that weekend when hundreds of thousands of people watch it at the roadside, many from out of the area.

“The race gets flashed all around the world and you couldn’t buy that sort of exposure for £180,000.”