Brentwood Right of Way Court Case & sale of Disabled Car Park to Barclays – report from Cllr Philip Mynott

"The court case to retain the public right of way from William Hunter Way to North Road Avenue was, unfortunately, lost. The magistrates said it was a very difficult decision to make and they certainly took a long time in recess making it.

"As this is an all or nothing process you either win or lose and you never know how close you came to having the opposite outcome. I think we may have come quite close to getting the opposite outcome - which, given that we were three untrained, non-professional objectors up against the council's top barrister is pretty good going.

"On the ground this decision may, however, mean that nothing whatsoever changes - this was not an application to physically block the route out of North Road Avenue across the disabled car park and the alternative route which has been created means that access to the High Street (albeit by a much less satisfactory route) is guaranteed.

"However the main issue now is the fact that the council is in the last stages of negotiation to sell the disabled car park to Barclays. A council asset is going to be sold, but this hasn't ever been raised, let alone discussed at Asset Panel. So, a significant financial transaction (albeit a land swap) is about to take place without any apparent financial scrutiny, or public discussion of it.

"Although this decision emerges out of the delegated powers process around the William Hunter Way development agreement back in 2007, the sale of the disabled car park to Barclays was NEVER mentioned, let alone discussed, as an inevitable consequence of the William Hunter Way plans. Tory councillors who voted in favour of the William Hunter Way plans will not have done so knowing, or having been told, that this sale would happen.

"Brentwood Council also seem to have now been advised that they can go through this process without submitting any planning application (despite having started, paused and then scrapped entirely a planning application to itself to change the use of the car park site in March). Currently, other than through this now abandoned council planning application, the disabled residents of Brentwood have had no opportunity to object to the sale or have their say on it in any way. Like everyone else (including ward councillors), they have not even been officially told that it is intended to happen!"