Oswestry’s new town green – on land once controversially earmarked for a health centre – has finally been opened.

The five acres of former railway land off the Gobowen Road has been transformed into an informal park with adventure play equipment, picnic tables, wildlife areas and Europe’s biggest turf labyrinth. One of those behind the scheme, Shropshire Council’s Shaun Burkey said the town green had polarised opinion.

Plans to build a primary care centre on the land were blocked when two residents applied for the land to be registered a town green.

The centre is now being built in railway buildings adjacent to the land.

Mr Burkey told the opening: “This land has polarised opinion over the years but we are here now and this is a new start.”

He said the labyrinth was still fenced off to the public because the dry weather in recent weeks had meant the turf had not yet bedded in.

The rest of the green would mature and grow over the years, he said.

Soil from the building of the Oswald Park leisure centre has been used to form the base of the future wildflower area.

Mr Colin Gregg, one of those who supported the initiative, said the green needed five to 10 years to look really good. He said he had always been in favour of retaining the land as open space.

“About 60-70 per cent of Oswestry’s housing is to the east of the railway land so to have this semi-wild space, not a formal, planted park, with adventure play space is fantastic.”

Former railwayman, Robert Cross, who worked on the site in 1972 when freight trains were still using the line said: “To return the land to what it was before the arrival of the railways was the right thing to do.”

With Shropshire council’s Councillor Steve Charmley stuck in traffic on his way to the opening, it was left to local children to perform the opening of the green.

Many were still playing on the land several of hours later.