THE MAN who exposed a charity’s public land sale blunder has claimed victory.

Honley resident Stephen Green became angry after open land near his home – known locally as Swindon Knowle – was sold at auction by the Holmfirth based Graveship of Holme Land Charity in December 2009.

The rural site was bought by local farmer Joseph Spooner and quickly fenced off and closed to the public.

Mr Green’s campaign began in early 2010 after he discovered the green belt site had a protected status as it was registered as Common Land.

It is thought bidders were not told of the land’s protected status at the auction.

He launched a one man crusade against the charity, including reporting them to Trading Standards, Information Commissioner and the Charity Commission.

Although none of them took action against the charity Mr Green continued to pressure for answers.

And he is now celebrating after the charity revealed it had bought the land back and returned it for public use.

A statement issued by charity secretary, Sally Barber, said: “The Holme Valley Parish Council (Graveship of Holme) Land Charity has bought back the Swindon Knowle quarry site at Honley for £8,500 – the same price for which it was sold at auction in 2009.

“The formal transfer back to the land charity has now been concluded and the land charity wishes to thank the auction buyer for his support in this matter.

“The land charity can confirm that this site is registered as Common Land and the trustee will continue to review the long term future use of this site.”

Mr Green said: “It has taken 18 months to achieve this grudging take it or leave it result involving much time and effort by many people.

“Even after the then charity chairman Clr Charles Kaye had publicly admitted the mistake, no effort was made to rectify the situation.

“It is good to know that Mr and Mrs Spooner have been given their purchase money back and that the Common Land at Swindon Knowle has been cleared.

“This goes some way to rectifying matters but in my opinion it is disgraceful that the buyers have not been fully compensated for all the money they have lost.

“Even this partial compensation has only been forthcoming after the land charity was subject to considerable adverse publicity, pressure from Clr Terry Lyons, Kirklees’ Legal Department and the threat of legal action.

“Indeed, upon receiving my complaint this so called land charity refused Freedom of Information requests and decided that from then on that its deliberations would be kept secret from the very public they are elected to represent.

“That is still the situation and of course a very useful way of hiding mistakes.

“They added insult to injury by announcing that land at Cliff, in Holmfirth, was in future to be protected under the Open Access legislation – the very law they had just ignored in Honley.”

Independent councillor for Holme Valley North, Terry Lyons, said officers in Kirklees Council’s legal team had stepped in to resolve the long running row.

He said: “Kirklees legal department played a strong hand. The land charity have got some egg on their faces.

“As far as I’m concerned they’ve sold it and they shouldn’t have done.

“I would like to know if they’ve compensated him for the work he did down there putting in a gate and laying down boulders and hardcore?”

But a spokeswoman for Kirklees would not confirm if they had been involved in the settling the long running row.

She said: “We have been informed that the matter is resolved and we are pleased that the public are once again able to exercise their right over the common land.”

Swindon Knowle was one of 26 exhausted quarries claimed by the charity after more than three decades of uncertainty over who owned them.

The quarries, most of which are less than an acre in size, were a legacy of the 1974 local government revamp, and Holme Valley parish councillors had been working for decades to clarify what they could do with them.

Having registered the quarries with the Land Registry the charity picked 13 it did not want to keep to sell at auction.

It said cash generated from the sales would be spent on community projects.

But the sale sparked anger with some locals who said there had been no public consultation about the popular walking spot.

Research by Mr Green revealed the site was registered as Common Land, protected by the 1965 Commons Registration Act; but the charity denied that the land was protected.

The laws mean the plot cannot be developed or fenced off without the permission of the Secretary of State for the Environment.

Planning permission can be obtained but the application fee is £4,900, more than half what the land was sold for at auction.

Common land rules also require developers to replace the lost space by supplying a similar plot of land for public use.