A339 Compulsory Purchase Order is withdrawn from agenda last minute due to council blunder

A KEY decision on buying land for an access road in Newbury has been delayed again after a second blunder by West Berkshire Council.

Last week, councillors were due to vote on whether the council should use its compulsory purchase powers to buy land for the new access road on to the A339 from Faraday Road.

The compulsory purchase order would have involved dem-olishing unit 7 and part of unit 6 in Fleming Road, currently occupied by Guardian Realty Ltd, as well as obtaining a section of land in Victoria Park next to the A339.

However, the item was pulled from the agenda at the last minute when eagle-eyed councillors spotted a technical error in the drawings

The council needs to start work on the road in the next 12 months to comply with the conditions of the £1.9m grant it received from central government.

The access road is part of a wider scheme to develop the London Road Industrial Estate, which would see developer St Modwen building 300 homes, plus more employment space and an 80-bed hotel.

The leader of the opposition, Alan Macro (Lib Dem, Theale) said: “It is an absolute disgrace that this schoolboy error was made and not picked up before the council agenda was published. The compulsory purchase order item had to be withdrawn from the previous meeting because of a legal problem.

“The agenda report should have been gone through with a fine-toothed comb to ensure that everything was correct and valid.”

It was the second time that the council had been forced to intervene.

In May the item about the CPO had been erroneously listed as a part two confidential item, which meant that the press and members of the public would be excluded from any discussions about it.

On that occasion, solicitors for Faraday Developments Limited, which owns the lease for the land the council wants to acquire, argued that it had not given five clear days’ notice for people to inspect the paperwork and the item was subsequently withdrawn from the agenda.

FDL’s solicitors said that the council had “absolutely no justification” for discussing the information in private, while FDL company director Duncan Crook accused the authority of “withholding vital information from the public” by planning to make the decision behind closed doors.

West Berkshire Council leader Gordon Lundie (Con, Lambourn Valley) vehemently denied the claims, insisting that it was “nothing more than a minor administrative error”.

But at last week’s meeting, Mr Lundie launched a blistering attack on council officers after the latest blunder, saying that members expected better.

“I am disappointed that this is the second time the item has been withdrawn from the agenda,” he said.

“It falls short of the level of detail we should expect from council officers and I want to make it very clear how unhappy I am that our council members have been let down.

“CPOs are among the most severe [powers] a public authority can use, as they deal with people’s land and property. It is really important to get the detail of it right

“I want to get reassurances from the chief executive and members that the next time it’s to the standards we expect.”

The council said that despite numerous attempts to acquire the land in question from both FDL and Newbury Town Council, it had been unsuccessful.

However, Mr Crook has disputed that claim, saying that the council had only made one offer, which was turned down.

Mr Lundie previously told the that the council had decided to consider using its compulsory purchase powers because Mr Crook “would not sell the land to us”.

The council says that the land earmarked for compulsory acquisition is required to deliver a traffic signal-controlled junction, about 230 metres south of the Robin Hood junction, that will connect into Fleming Road and in turn to Faraday Road.

The item will now be discussed at a special council meeting on July 20.