HOUSEHOLDERS in Malhamdale each face a £40 bill to fund legal action over the village green.

Kirkby Malhamdale Parish Council has warned that its precept is likely to treble from an average £19 per household to around £60 to meet the costs of its successful legal action. The precept is added to council tax bills.

Councillors sought a Court order against a Malham resident to get him to move back a wall and gateposts which were encroaching on to the village green. Skipton County Court found in favour of the parish council and ordered resident Jonathan Cawood, of Riverside Barn, to pay £500 damages and move back the wall.

The dispute started in the 1980s when Mr Cawood and the council reached an agreement to allow him wall off 20 square metres of village green to give access to the back of his barn.

But in 1997, Mr Cawood, who runs Gargrave-based engineering company Reel to Reel, extended the wall and built two gateposts.

This led to an investigation by the parish council, which discovered he should not have been allowed to wall off the green, and it gave him six months to remove the posts and move the wall back to its original position. In June, the council's case was upheld by the courts.

Villagers recently received a letter from Kirkby Malhamdale Parish Council telling them they would have to pay up to £60 on their council tax bills from April 2001 to meet the costs and expenses of the case.

However, residents claim nothing has been resolved as building materials, a speedboat and Range Rover have been left on the green.

One resident said: "It is just ridiculous that we are paying for this and still putting up with all this mess."

He added the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority was also "sitting on the fence".

"The Yorkshire Dales National Park is always getting praised for what it does, but in this case I think it needs to pull its finger out!"

However, Mr Cawood told the Herald the court had ordered him to complete the work in six months, which gave him until November 26.

"I'm half way through doing the work and I'm going to complete it in the two months which are left. I'm bending over backwards to do it and they are still giving me grief."

When asked why he was parking on the green, he said he had no choice.

"If I had been left alone in the first place and they had not taken the access away from us the Range Rover and the speedboat could have been put round the back of the house."

Mr Cawood added that he thought it was disgusting that parishioners had been asked to pay an extra £40 on their council tax bills to cover the court costs and called it a "personal vendetta using parishioners' money".

A letter to parishioners from council clerk Kingsley Iball said: "As you will appreciate the costs of this action have been quite considerable. This was the reason for the quite considerable rise in this year's precept."

And Julie Boocock, parish council chairman, said: "We greatly regret the action that we have had to take but as custodians of the village green it is our duty to protect and care for it.

"The parish council is aware of the recent developments and are completely committed to rectifying the situation as soon as possible."

A spokesman for the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority said: "The authority is actively trying to seek a resolution to the planning issues involved."