Burnley College fence legal (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Burnley College fence legal

4:16pm Friday 2nd November 2007 in

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PROTESTORS angered by a new three-metre high fence at Burnley College have been told it does not block a right of way.

College chiefs say the fencing, at the back of the Ormerod Road site on the edge of Thompson Park, is necessary as part of their plans to create their new university-style campus at Princess Way.

Currently the owners of the campus land, on the former Burnley Paperworks site, will receive the Ormerod Road land in part payment for their holdings.

The barrier runs from a footbridge over the River Brun, at the south end of the park, past the boating lake to join up with the northern end of the old college of art and technology buildings.

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But Burnley MP Kitty Ussher, neighbours and the Canalside Community Association have voiced their concerns over what they consider to be a well-used right of way' being blocked up.

People living nearby have wrote to Burnley council to claim that access to the park is being obstructed by the fence, which has already been installed without planning permission being obtained.

Residents also say the fence is too intrusive' and restricts the only level access into the park at this point - a view supported by Burnley Civic Society.

Community association leaders have protested that the fence is out-of-keeping with the green surroundings and is unnecessarily high'.

But council officials say it is a common misconception that the route is actually a right of way' - they insist it is a permissive' footpath and was only used previously with the consent of the college.

"The normal closure procedures involving public notices and objection periods do not apply," says a Burnley council planning spokesman in a report to councillors.

"However before the college could close it, they required the council to grant a deed of release from an agreement that was put in place in 1998, which reserved the right for the public to cross the site in order to gain access to park in perpetuity."

Members of the borough council's executives voted to overturn the deed, at the college's request, at a meeting last August.

"It decided that the substantial contribution that the new college and university will make to the economic and social well-being of the borough outweighed the loss of the access and agreed to the deed of release," added the planning official.

Councillors sitting on Burnley's development control committee have been told that the only issue they need to resolve, when they meet next Thursday, is whether they believe the fence is visually acceptable.

Planning chiefs argue that it is similar to fencing erected around the majority of Burnley's schools by Lancashire County Council, and have recommended that the barrier should stay.