PRESS RELEASE

ASHTON VALE HERITAGE GROUP


“Ashton Vale Heritage Group” is shocked that the Council Officers have chosen to recommend rejection of the Independent Inspector’s report that the whole of the site (including the northern half) be Town Green by relying upon the Landowners’ so called “new” evidence.

The PROW&G committee is being asked to reach a conclusion not upon a basis of compromise but on the basis of an attack on our credibility made in this new evidence. The Council Officers have asked the PROW&G councillors to accept the truth of this new evidence without even reading our response to it or subjecting the new witnesses to examination.

We do not consider this “new” evidence to be either new or accurate - it simply repeats the allegations disproved by the Applicants at the Public Inquiry. The Council chooses to ignore the fact that most of the Landowners' original witnesses (of which there were 17) who made similar allegations in their written evidence to the Public Inquiry retracted that evidence when cross examined and subsequently supported our evidence. The Council chooses to ignore the fact that much of this new evidence is demonstrably false.

We are surprised that Council officers are choosing to act in a manner so obviously unfair and contrary to all their prior assurances as to how this matter would be dealt with.

As regards to the next steps, we will wait to see what the PROW&G committee decides first.”


Ashton Vale Heritage Group.
June 16th 2011