Camborne Town Council has offered its "heartfelt thanks" to everyone who supported a campaign to take over Camborne Recreation Ground, despite failing to secure the freehold.

The council had petitioned Cornwall Council earlier this year, gathering more than 4,000 signatures in support of its taking on the freehold.

However when the green spaces devolution package for Camborne was considered by Cornwall Council's Cabinet on November 9, the recommendation of the Localism Policy Advisory Committee was ignored.

This meant that instead of transferring the freehold in its entirety to Camborne Town Council, and despite approving all other green spaces being transferred freehold, the cabinet chose to split the Recreation Ground in two, granting freehold transfer of the park section and leasehold transfer for a term of 99 years and one day of the rugby pitch section.

The town council reported that this recommendation was circulated at the start of the meeting and was the only one considered at the meeting, and Cornwall Council's representatives said the best way to protect the rugby pitch for the future would be to keep its hands on the tiller.

The town council had requested that Cornwall Council dedicate the pitch as a field in trust in order to protect it for recreational use and was, pleased that this was agreed by the cabinet. Freehold ownership would have enabled the Town Council to protect the ground in perpetuity, but the protection will now run for the term of the lease.

The draft minutes of the Cabinet meeting state that "there had been a petition raised regarding the freehold transfer of the rugby ground to Camborne Town Council which had raised over 4,000 signatures, and this had been taken into account at this meeting."

However a representative of Camborne Town Council said: "The subject of the petition was only raised by Cornwall Councillors for Camborne; there was no evidence of its consideration in the decision taken at the meeting."

The representative added: "Camborne Town Council intends to continue to pursue the freehold transfer of the rugby pitch section of the Recreation Ground in the future. In the meantime, the council is pleased to have secured some greater security for the ground and has approved a new lease for a term of ninety nine years at a peppercorn rent to Camborne RFC to take effect once the leasehold to the town council has been transferred.

"We look forward to working with the club to use the whole site for the greater benefit of the local community.

"Thank you again for your support; we were proud that so many people across Cornwall cared about the future of this historically important site."