The Ashton Vale village green area marked, top, and Bristol City FC’s Ashton gate stadium
A new public inquiry will be held into the Ashton Vale town green dispute, it has emerged.
The independent barrister who recommended the entire area be registered as a town green back in 2010 will chair the new inquiry, which is likely to start in October.
Ms Ross Crail produced her report, which recommended the entire site be registered as a town green, in August 2010, but new evidence and submissions were submitted in November 2010.
Bristol City Council said the inquiry was needed because: “The council is of the view that the further evidence requires consideration in the same manner as the previous evidence, that is at a public inquiry.”
The long-running row has thrown plans by Bristol City Football Club to build a new stadium at Ashton vale into disarray.
Despite winning planning permission for the stadium in November 2010, the plans were put on hold while the town green row rumbled on.
A compromise agreement made by councillors in 2011 allowed for the site to be split – with the northern half reserved for the new stadium and the southern half registered as a town green.
But the decision was challenged by town green campaigners and, in June, the council withdrew from the legal battle over its decision to split the site.
In an email seen by Bristol24-7 at the weekend, the council said the conduct of the inquiry would be determined by Ms Crail.
A pre-inquiry meeting is expected to be held in October, which a council spokesman said may include “issues such as safety of witnesses”. Town green campaigners have complained about intimidation throughout their battle.
Both locally and nationally, certain people (including George Osborne) are claiming that the way out of this recession is to take the green spaces which common people use for informal recreation and turn them into building plots.
This is a device which appears to create money out of nothing as the land value rockets when planning permission is obtained, enabling the developer to use this gain in value to build. But the money is not created out of nothing. It is created by taking away the common rights of recreation of the locals.
This City has 100s of acres of derelict and empty commerical space upon which developers can build. Those who wish this city to develop should focus their energy on this empty land.
Ashton Vale is not a tip and has not been for more than 25 years now. It is a Nature Reserve and features on the Council's own nature walks. I for one am sick of the propaganda from people who have never set foot on this land.
Bristol as a city needs to grow we are a city of entertainment and football is the biggest entertainment in the world we have 2 clubs desperate to progress but as rovers have found in the past and city are right now there hands are tied we have a piece of land which is an ex-dump to build a fantastic stadium on and a man who with his business partner has created 1000s of jobs at his successful business in the city centre and has backed Bristol Ciry and now Bristol Rugby to the hilt he is trying to get this city moving unfortunately this city is still asleep 5 projects city’s new stadium , rovers new stadium , an arena the severn barrage and the rapid rail link should put us back on the map.
This seems a bit strange?
A few weeks ago, the BBC were saying that the council were going to ask the inspector how to proceed including whether there was a need for a full blown inquiry?
Are the council now saying that she has responded and confirmed that there is a need for an expensive inquiry or have the council changed its mind and decided on their own that there needs to be another inquiry?