But the report produced by Leeds City Council's leisure scrutiny board following an inquiry into the issue has left it split.

With five members in favour of the report and its findings and five voting against, board chairman Councillor Ted Hanley used his casting vote to support the report which will now be referred to the council's Executive Board for its comments.

The scrutiny board agreed to hold an inquiry after over 6,000 people signed a petition opposing the council's decision to erect safety railings alongside part of the River Wharfe in Wharfemeadows Park, Otley.

The railings were installed following a water safety review carried out after an accident at Waterloo Lake, Roundhay Park, in which two teenagers died.

Wharfedale Action Group (WAG), formed to campaign against the fencing, argued the Executive Board received inaccurate advice leading members to fear corporate manslaughter charges could be brought if there was a fatal accident and the council had failed to take safety measures.

The scrutiny board said that, having viewed all the evidence, it rejected WAG's argument.

It said: "We do not concur with WAG's proposition that the Executive Board was somehow misled into making this decision either through inaccurate legal advice or bogus threats of potential manslaughter charges."

But the report did find there had been inadequate public consultation over the issue and also called for legal advice obtained by the council to be made publicly available, except in circumstances to be decided by the council's monitoring officer.

Coun Bernard Atha (Lab, Kirkstall), one of the five to vote against the report, has produced his own minority report in which he says: "The decision to fence was taken initially at the February 2007 (Executive) Board based on a fundamentally wrong interpretation of the law. This interpretation was not corrected."

A WAG spokeswoman told the Yorkshire Evening Post: "The scrutiny board is clearly divided on its own final report."

She added the group looked forward to studying Coun Atha's report which they had been told would be factual, robust and incisive.