Ridiculous’ nine-month path closure aggravating residents
COUNCIL PUT UP SAFETY BARRIERS BUT WORK TO BE DONE BY OWNER OF DAMAGED WALL
A NINE-MONTH closure of the main path into a village park because of an ownership dispute has been branded “ridiculous” by a frustrated resident.
The main path into Stafford Orchard Park, in Quorn, has been closed since late January due to a damaged wall deemed hazardous to the public, with no indication given to residents of when the repairs will take place.
The lengthy delay is due to a dispute over who owns the wall, and who will therefore pick up the repair bill.
While Leicestershire County Council has taken responsibility for closing the path to protect park users, it says the wall is part of the border of the house behind it, and therefore any costs should be picked up by the homeowners.
Sue Griffiths, a resident of the village, has branded the legal spat “ridiculous”, saying everyone she has spoken to is fed-up with the situation.
She said: “There is absolutely no one who is saying, ‘isn’t this great? It doesn’t matter at all.’
“Everyone that you speak to in Quorn is very annoyed about this astonishing situation where the county council decided to close the path in January and has done absolutely nothing ever since.
“It’s not just any old footpath that the odd dog walker uses from time to time, it’s a real public thoroughfare that everybody who goes to the centre of Quorn uses. “You have to negotiate parked cars, uneven pavements, curbs in order to get to the next [closest] entrance. The county council has been saying this is the entrance everyone has to use, including people arriving with a wheelchair or walking aids in the car park, who then have to somehow stagger up the road.
“It’s a very, very important path, you used to see people walking across it all the time. It’s a ridiculous situation.”
A Leicestershire County Council spokesman said: “We’d like to thank residents for their patience as we try to resolve a complicated situation with the wall.
“Unfortunately, the damage to the structure has created safety issues which have meant we have had to close the adjacent footpath until it can be fixed. The responsibility for repairing the wall lies with its owner rather than the council.
“Our initial investigations have shown a history of changes to ownership and we are continuing to work to identify who is responsible for the repairs to the wall.
“When ownership can be confirmed we can serve legal notice for the wall repairs to be carried out.”
But Ms Griffiths has said she is not interested in who owns the wall, only that it gets fixed sooner rather than later.
“I’m honestly not interested in who owns the wall”, she said. “I don’t care.
“I’m interested in the fact that the county council has these responsibilities to demolish or repair dangerous structures and not just continue to let people walk past them for months because they’ve pushed aside some flimsy barrier.
“They have a responsibility to keep footpaths open and they’ve closed this one for nine months and they are falling down on these responsibilities.
“What they should have done months ago was demolish the wall, perhaps put a temporary barrier along it, opened the footpath so people could use it and rebuilt the wall and let the lawyers sort out who pays for it afterwards. They have the power and they have the responsibility.
“We’ve been fobbed off because they say ‘it’s with the lawyers.’ For nine months it’s been with the lawyers. There’s a dispute about who owns the wall and this is apparently what the lawyers have been raking in all this money to argue about for the last nine months.
“Obviously, it’s all about money and who pays for it, it’s an old granite wall, it’s a pretty wall in a conservation area. It’s going to be a very expensive job, it’s going to take months.
“This is all going to cost a lot of money which is presumably why the owners of the house are so anxious for it to not be their wall. And you can understand that, it’s going to cost a fortune.”
Everyone that you speak to in Quorn is very annoyed about this astonishing situation
Sue Griffiths