Preston residents to launch legal challenge over park revamp

The hub has been controversial among residents with many signing a petition to oppose it

Residents are set to launch a legal challenge against a council if it presses ahead with controversial plans to build sports facilities on a suburban park.

The proposed £9.7m revamp would see the creation of a two-storey sports pavilion, 3G football pitch and 150-space car park in Preston.

More than 2,000 people have signed a petition opposing the development.

The council said it had "engaged external legal advisors".

The Ashton Park revamp would be funded largely via cash from the government's Levelling Up Fund and was approved at a meeting of the full council in December.

However, the scheme still requires planning permission from the authority's own independent, cross-party planning committee.

The 1,200-strong Fight for Ashton Park group was set up in response to the planning application and opposed major elements of the project in its current form.

The proposal will see the creation of a two-storey sports pavilion, 3G football pitch and 150-space car park

The group issued Preston City Council with a so-called "letter before action", indicating it would seek a legal block on the development should it ultimately be approved.

Solicitors instructed by the campaigners were in correspondence with legal advisers for the local authority after the group raised concerns over wildlife and archaeological surveys undertaken for the planning application, it is understood.

They also questioned why the council meeting - at which the overall concept was agreed - went into private session while the matter was discussed, a move which the council had previously indicated was because it involved the disclosure of commercially confidential information presented as part of the business case for the proposal.

James Walmsley, one of the founder members of Fight for Ashton Park, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service the group was gearing up for a lengthy - and potentially costly - legal battle against a blueprint that would swallow up almost 15% of the site's surface area, according to the council's own figures.

"The fight begins if they pass it," Mr Walmsley said.

More than 2,000 people had signed a petition opposing the development and 80% of more than 600 respondents to a public consultation into the idea were against it.

A spokesperson for the council said: "The council has engaged external legal advisors and, as such, it would be inappropriate to comment on any aspect of the case."

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