THE YOUTH Hostel Association's popular holiday centre at Lockton, near Pickering, is to become a state-of-the-art example of energy conservation.

Members of the North York Moors National Park Authority's planning committee have given the go-ahead for some 26 ecological features to be installed at the centre, the former village school, including a dry compost toilet and solar panels.

The YHA told the authority that the Lockton project would be Britain's finest integrated eco-youth hostel. "The building will generate its own clean energy, harvest its own water and recycle waste materials, causing no pollution or CO2 emissions. From the outset, the project aims to inspire and inform future schemes".

The organisation said that without significant investment and an investigation of alternative markets, the future of the Lockton centre would be in question.

Updated: 10:09 Friday, March 14, 2003