Otley Town Council will scrap its plans to take over the running of its own markets if it means having to pass on a £38,000 bill to local taxpayers.

Town councillors heard on Monday that discussions with Leeds City Council over devolving control of the markets, something the town council has been hoping for for the last few years, were progressing.

But members were also told that Otley would have to turn its back on the proposal if it could not take on a £38,000 a year liability – the amount the city council says it is currently losing from the market.

Stressing that discussions were still at an early stage, town council leader and comm-ittee chairman Coun Jim Spencer said: “We have no intention of taking on a deficit of £30,000-plus a year for ever, that’s not going to happen.

“We have had a meeting with the city council about the markets which was positive. They clearly have a very definite intention of passing the markets down and they’ve definitely included the town council within that as the prospective receiver of the control of Otley markets.

“It did seem to me that they were very keen to get this on and want it to happen quickly.

“For the next meeting more details will be available on the finances. We did get an overall picture which is it makes a £38,000 loss, on paper.

“But they’re going to work hard on that and come back with some better figures and possibilities.

“It was said at the meeting that if it would cost an enormous amount of money it would have to be decided where that money would come from, because we don’t have it.”

Some, like Coun Ray Smith, questioned how relevant the city council’s figures would be to an Otley-run market.

He said: “You would think this figure must be taken from a statistic which includes markets all over Leeds and would include management costs within Leeds that just wouldn’t be the same as they would be in Otley.”

Coun Mary Vickers was confident a locally run market would perform much better.

She said: “I can’t see how they have made a loss of nearly £40,000, I’m sure we could turn that around.”

Coun Spencer said: “I think you’re absolutely right, we could probably run it at a slight profit – but if it proved that we couldn’t, and that by taking it on we would have to subsidise it by that amount of money, then we aren’t going to do it.”

The committee agreed to back a proposal by ward and town councillor Colin Campbell (Lib Dem, Otley and Yeadon) that: “In principle we wish to continue the negotiations until sufficient information is available so that we can make a decision as to whether or not we wish to undertake the management of the market.”

The city council’s leader, Coun Andrew Carter, had given the devolution hopes fresh impetus in November when he announced that Otley, Yeadon and Pudsey markets would be better run locally.