Leader aims to 'limit financial damage' to Shrewsbury Town Council of Greenfields park sale mistake
Shrewsbury Town Council's leader is aiming to limit the financial hit that local taxpayers will have to take in buying back a piece of parkland that was wrongly sold to developers.
Council leaders met members of the Greenfields community to update them on what is happening with the recreation ground parkland where the highest court in the land decided it should remain for locals to use.
Buying back the parkland from developers is set to cost the council which sold it for £550,000 in 2017 - but town council leader Alan Mosley says he wants the parties to be "reasonable" to limit the financial hit that taxpayers might have to take.
Councillor Alan Mosley, the leader of Shrewsbury Town Council told the BBC that the council has employed a solicitor to "ensure it costs as little as possible".
He also said the council wants to look at the "culpability of other people involved in this dispute" and indicated that he thought the issue could drag on for years yet.
"But we have got to get a good deal for Greenfields residents and ensure a good deal for the residents of Shrewsbury as a whole," he said.
Councillor Mosley is confident that this can be done.
He said: "We think we can. We've got a highly capable, well qualified solicitor who is a champion in the field, as it were.
"If there is reasonableness all round then we hope we can do a good deal and as quickly as possible."
The council leader admitted that there is "quite a lot of public money at stake and we have got to get it right for the residents of Greenfields and the residents of Shrewsbury".
"It may well take some time to get it right," he added.
Councillor Mosley said he believes the council did the right thing by admitting a mistake had happened. It had apologised and would learn from it, he said.
Councillor Mosley added: “I was pleased to have the opportunity of addressing the wider group, then answering questions and having a productive dialogue with the good number of attendees.
"We have genuinely accepted our mistakes in failing to recognise our full legal responsibilities in the sale of a part of the land at Greenfields and have apologised.
"We have learned much and have put process in place to ensure that no such errors can happen again.
"However, we can’t continue to look back but instead must now focus on how we can return the land for community use.
"For this to happen as soon as possible there is a genuine willingness on the part of the Town Council to work with the community group and other stakeholders.”
Dr Peter Day, who lead the Greenfields Community Group to a stunning planning victory to overturn a Shropshire Council planning decision in the Supreme Court, says there are questions to answer.
A meeting of the group at Greenfields Church on Tuesday evening saw around 30 residents attend the update.
Dr Day said he was pleased that Councillor Mosley's statement is "on the record" and now in the public domain because "we didn't get anything about this in writing".
He added: "They need to find a way to resolve this and buy the land back. We have had nothing back on paper but we are glad that Councillor Mosley has responded because it closes some of the possible exit doors.
"The odd thing about this saga is that nobody has ever admitted liability for the error. We had clear evidence from the Land Registry that this was public land that should never have been sold off.
"We kept asking them for the documents, the evidence of their position, and thought they might have a smoking gun that we did not know of but it never came. And all the time we had the absolute proof for our case but they did not listen."
The group is still in pursuit of several lines of inquiry to find out why the land sale happened, including asking for a planning review at Shropshire Council.
"Everyone said it had never been a park but were wrong in fact, in law and in reality, and we would like to get to the bottom of why it happened," he said.
