Council bosses claim a land swop deal could be the key to ensuring Oswestry’s former railway land is developed to provide a health village.The move follows a public inquiry last month which saw a government inspector recommend that a request to register the five-acre site off Gobowen Road as a town green be approved.

The decision could see plans for health facilities on the site shelved. Shropshire County Council is expected to make the final decision next month.

But Oswestry Borough Council chiefs revealed last night that an application could be made to the Government to provide an alternative site for a town green.

Chief executive Paul Shevlin said an “exchange application” could be made to Defra. This would mean identifying a suitable piece of land that could become a town green instead of the five-acre site.

But he said: “It is unlikely this would go through without another public inquiry as I expect there would be objectors. It is not a quick or an easy process and there is no guarantee it would be successful.”

Advantage West Midlands bought the former railway land four years ago for £600,000 hoping to transform it into a health village.

But the plans hit the buffers when an application to register it a town green was made. A smaller scheme to build a health centre in the adjacent Cambrian Railway Works is going ahead.

Councillors have agreed to write to Shropshire County Council urging it not to register the land as a town green and suggested the Environment Secretary be invited to Oswestry to see the land.

Councillor Martin Bennett said the site was at risk of becoming a £600,000 wasteland and council leader, Councillor David Lloyd, said: “It will become a playground for drug addicts and drunks, a weedy wilderness, because of a piece of ill-conceived, common land legislation.”

Oswestry Town Council will debate the future of the land at a specially convened meeting in the Guildhall tonight.

By Sue Austin