Town green row

11:19am Thursday 1st May 2008

I HAVE been briefed by a former colleague who, like me, was a member of WWDC about the behaviour of Wiltshire County Council and West Wiltshire District Council over the attempt to register the land at Beech Grove in Trowbridge as a town green.

I think it is disgraceful that the report to the county council's regulatory committee indicated that the application met almost all the statutory conditions but still the county council felt it needed to be tested further by a non-statutory inquiry.

The county council could not find a reason to defeat this application so have opted to follow this route in order that WWDC can get the expensive lawyers to defeat this application.

From my experience of local authorities (I was deputy leader at WWDC during the last administration) they have no money and want to appear as prudent as possible. In order to achieve this they are selling off parcels of land they own to mitigate any increase in the rates. Here they stand to gain, the report to the regulatory committee says, £120,000.

GORDON COX, Melksham