A stressed-out homeowner told campaigners their fight to wrestle back a former park keeper’s lodge for community use could take away his ‘dream home’.
Stephen Cooper addressed Hoole Community Forum saying he was ‘upset’ at the prospect of losing his home, within the grounds of Hoole Alexandra Park, if residents succeeded in their quest to defeat Cheshire West and Chester Council at judicial review over its original decision to sell the property to a developer in February 2013.
Mr Cooper, who paid £475,000 for the lodge, said: “I’m four generations Hoole. This is my dream house and for me to be a little bit upset is not unreasonable. You can talk about whose fault it is and I understand it’s the council. That is nothing to do with me but it’s my home that’s at risk.”
The home owner, who was supported by several members of the packed meeting at Hoole Community Centre, brought along a letter from Hoole Alexandra Park Bowling Club, located in front of the lodge, expressing support for the way he and his partner Chrissy had ‘become part of the life at Hoole Park’.
Mr Cooper had responded after one female Hoole resident told the meeting: “I understand where you are coming from, sir. But I think your anger is misguided. I think you should be very unhappy with the people you bought the property from.”
She added that the original vendors, the council, had ‘led everybody up the garden path’.
Trust?
Campaigner Linda Webb, whose aim is ‘to reunite the park in all its parts’, has reported the matter to police because she is convinced council officers’ actions were ‘illegal from the very start’ as they had no right to sell the lodge for £249,000 because documents show the entire park was held ‘in trust’ by CWaC but not owned by them.
Any disposal should have meant a decision by the executive committee of councillors and a strict legal process involving a full consultation.
Ms Webb, who is calling for an external investigation into CWaC’s actions, told the meeting: “It is our assertion that the council lost control of the actions of its officers.” She added: “Corruption is when people do things to achieve an end they cannot achieve if they go about things in the right legal way.”
The group has raised £1,000 which could be used to pay for a solicitor’s letter to the authority explaining they were minded to apply for a judicial review. If the council wished to continue to judicial review, then another £5,000 would need to be raised.
Pressed on the end goal, she said: “The council can buy the property back.”
She added: “There has been a call for the new leader of the council to look into what’s happened and I think at the moment she is considering the position in relation to a number of other cases that there are across CWaC.”
Former Hoole resident Grant Roxburgh, from Upton, backed up this statement when he told the meeting he had suffered injustice at the hands of the council. He said: “My end game is to get the council to do what they should have done properly.”
Council 'acted legally'
CWaC’s audit and governance committee also heard from campaigner Linda Webb this week where, in front of the council’s senior legal officer Vanessa Whiting, she told members the council had “acted illegally”. Labour and Tory members described her allegations, including concerns over the disappearance of a deed packet relating to the lodge, as ‘very serious”. A report will be compiled for the private section of the next meeting with the council leader to be made aware of the claims.
Ms Whiting, head of governance and monitoring officer, said in statement issued later: “The audit and governance committee decided that a report will be presented to the next meeting of the committee which will be on January 19 (2016).”
