YORKSHIRE Forward has submitted a plan to the Government on how to dispose of its assets, which include York's Holgate Park and the ESS site at Burn airfield.

The regional development agency has told the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), in the plan outlining how it intends to dispose of its assets and liabilities as it is wound up, that it will attempt to keep strategic sites in public ownership.

Thea Stein, chief executive, said in the report: "Where these assets and liabilities are still strategically important for the economic growth of the region and it represents long-term value for money, it is the desire of Yorkshire Forward and its partners to retain public control of these sites. This will enable the vision for which they were acquired to be realised."

Yorkshire Forward said that Yorkshire's Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) are not yet in a position to receive any assets so have not been considered as potential destinations, and that assets would only be transferred to Government if no local solution can be found.

The £220 million-worth of assets owned by Yorkshire Forward include the leasehold of Yorkshire Forward's York office at Spitfire House, Clifton Moor; the fish and chip shop and former Mermaid pub at Scarborough's Futurist Buildings and the ESS site at Burn airfield, near Selby.

Finance Yorkshire investment fund is expected to transfer to a national venture capital loan fund by September 2011.