YORK should have looked carefully at the financial success of the Tour de France before committing to the new Tour of Yorkshire bike race, councillors have said.

Aspects of City of York Council's commercial plans for the Grand Depart were far from successful, members of an economic committee said last week, and the chairman Andrew Waller last week told the leisure bosses responsible that he was concerned the "lessons learnt" had not emerged before the Tour de Yorkshire plans started.

Cabinet member for tourism Cllr Sonja Crisp and leisure director Sally Burns faced questions on Wednesday in a meeting which saw Cllr Paul Healey say that while the council had succeeded in "the things we needed to do" for the Tour de France - like road safety, stewarding and crowd barriers - it had failed at extras like camping facilities and the £187,000 loss-making Grand Departy concert.

He said: "I would suggest that next time we stick to our knitting, and if someone thinks they can make money out of camping or putting on a staged event we let them organise it."

Ms Burns, who was talking to the economic and city development and scrutiny committee, said this year the council would focus on supporting community plans to celebrate the cycle race, rather than pumping money into its own schemes.

She said the camping and concert plans last July - dreamt up as a way to recover some costs for the council - had been "a complete disaster" in part because a very late decision to stage the concert.

But after the strong success of the Bishopthorpe Road traders' street party for the Tour de France, her staff had seen a "groundswell" of support from other communities wanting to "do it for themselves" and stage their own celebrations, including groups in Micklegate and Fossgate.

She added: "We have an officer supporting those communities. We are not putting a massive amount of budget into it, they are becoming self-sustaining and that is what we are trying to achieve."

Cllr Sonja Crisp had been invited to the committee meeting to give an update on the Tour de France results, but told members that her responsibility had only been for the cultural festival and the "mechanics" of the event, while Sally Burns had organised the commercial aspect reporting to then council leader James Alexander.