Councillor gives update on the future of Harrington Green in Borrowash

A borough councillor has taken to social media to update Borrowash residents on the future of land known locally as 'Harrington Green'.

The update comes after the land, which has been public open space for decades, was fenced off in early September as part of what a borough council notice stated was "the conveyancing process" - one of several stretches of green space across the borough put up for sale by the previous Conservative led formation of the authority.

Posting on line on Thursday 17th October, Councillor Greg Maskalick said that process to sell the land was reaching the final stages with solicitors and added that the borough council expected the sale to be completed in the next few weeks.

He clarified that the footpath which dissects the land is NOT a public right-of-way, but was instead, just a short-cut from one end of the field to the other that was created by regular footfall by residents over a period of time.  He added that Erewash Borough Council had subsequently gravelled it to make the walking surface as level as possible with a view to preventing injuries to those using the route, but added: "It was never a public footpath and does not meet the criteria of a public footpath in law."

He stressed the importance of looking at the planning application when it becomes available for public scrutiny and added: "The best we can do is put in a request to planning that there is some sort of public walk way put through" but that such a request was not guaranteed but nevertheless "worth fighting for"

Referencing anticipated plans for the site, he said that relevant documents would be made available to the public as soon as they are submitted to planning officers and pledged to let Borrowash residents know as soon as it reaches his e-mail inbox and to publish it on line.

Finally, Councillor Maskalick referenced the subject of water run-off, and said that there is major criteria that the Environment Agency sees as "hot and heavy", and that water run-off is done so that flooding does not occur downstream in the area expected to be built upon but said that this was, once again, part of the planning application, details for which could be seen upon publication of documents with regard to how the developer will mitigate Agency concern.