Member Section Access vs Public Access

I have a requirement where some of my editors only have access to certain content folders, easy enough to configure by setting the content start node for that user.

Within that content start node, I want editors to pick and choose the public access settings, for example they might want folder 1 to be public content, but folder 2 should be restricted to logged in members.

I have granted the public access permission to the user group, and specifically on the content start node, but this option does not appear. In fact, it only appears if I give them access to the “Members” section, which is not an option as then they can manage member and member groups.

Is this a bug, or designed to work like this, or am I missing something in the setup. It seems a pretty basic scenario so hoping I am missing something!

Issue is known but still a problem in v15, Editors cannot set group based- or specific members protection on any node · Issue #9133 · umbraco/Umbraco-CMS · GitHub.