Village calls for deal in sports centre saga

Dec 11 2008 by nick lavigueur, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

RESIDENTS in Skelmanthorpe fear they will never see a new community centre in their village.

Groups who have spent years campaigning for a centre claim they are victims of a deal by a building firm.

Village residents, Kirklees councillors and members of Parkgate Sports and Community Trust claim they were “used” by Flockton builder Brian Dunford to bypass planning law.

It was back in 2001 that Mr Dunford approached the trust saying he had some land they could use in their bid to build a two-storey community sports facility.

Mr Dunford had paid £68,000 for land behind Station Road in the village but a Kirklees Council covenant dictated it could only be developed for industrial use.

Mr Dunford told the group he would build their sports centre if they backed a joint planning application for new homes and industrial units on the site as he had sealed a deal to sell some of the land to property developer Jones Homes, on the proviso the covenant was lifted.

Although letters were exchanged between the groups’ solicitors, no final contract was ever signed.

He submitted the planning application and, with the promise of a community facility on the way, Kirklees planners duly lifted the restrictions.

But a series of industrial units were erected on the site and there has been no sign of a community centre.

Last June, the land’s new owners Sunny-button Ltd, run by Dunford’s son and daughter Paul and Sue, confessed to Kirklees Council they had broken a new ‘community use’ covenant, slapped on the remaining land as part of the original application, and built seven more industrial units.