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Dead end sales pitch!

21/12/2001

A CADISHEAD developer is suing Salford Council claiming they led him up the wrong garden path.

Builder Neil Oldham has been banned from selling houses in Fir Street because they have been built over a right of way.

He says he is over £400,000 in debt and his company, Holmgrade Ltd - which employs over 20 local people - is now under threat.

At Salford Magistrates' Court, Salford Council withdrew an application for diverting the path on technical grounds and as a result a freeze has been put on sale of the houses.

Mr Oldham claims he bought the land - a large part of which is owned by Salford Council - for £12,500 and was given permission to start building in January.

Said Mr Oldham: "As directed by planning officers, an application was put in for a closure order on the right of way on the land. I was told granting it would be a formality.

"I discovered in June that the wrong order had been applied for - it should have been a diversion order for the right of way."

Mr Oldham also alleges he was shown the wrong map by the council with the path at the back of the planned properties - now the houses have been built, maps reveal the path is in fact through the middle.

"If the council had told me this at the beginning of the year I would have stopped building while we sorted it out.

"I feel we have been put in an impossible situation and have no alternative but to sue."

The matter came to light in June when Open Spaces Society saw a public notice about the right of way in the newspapers and lodged an objection.

Council spokesman Ian Andrew said: "We have withdrawn our application for a diversion order on this bridle way and now we will be looking to work with all the parties involved to negotiate a compromise acceptable to all."

Two weeks ago The Advertiser reported how the council were ordered to pay £67,327.98 compensation to the owner of a house in Boothstown over a planning blunder.