David loses round one in green battle to protect open land

A Baptist minister who took Oldham Council to task in a David and Goliath battle to protect public open space, has lost the first stage in his campaign.

A planning inspector has ruled that the popular recreation area on the Oak Colliery site off Hollins Road should not be given town green status.

The Rev David Joynes, minister of Beulah Baptist Church, Hollinwood, said today that he was extremely disappointed.

And he will also lose around £6,000 of his own money which he put up to fund the appeal action.

But while the first round may be lost, there is still hope on the horizon in the battle for the land. On September 11, an independent group of five cross-party councillors — the commons registration committee — will meet at Oldham Civic Centre to try to reach a final decision.

Mr Joynes said: “We are disappointed and there was a lot of support for a town green there.

“At first it was planned that there would be an academy school on that site. But that has already been put aside.

“What I was trying to do was to preserve the site however from future building work.

“We believed we had satisfied most of the criteria needed. But this is only one stage that has been lost.

“There is still an important issue to be decided here.”

The former colliery open space in Hollins includes a skate park and grassland.

Mr Joynes’s battle started when he said he discovered that Labour councillors were secretly planning to overturn a covenant protecting the land.

He said at the time: “This is the last piece of green space in Hollinwood.

“I wanted it to be designated a town green area to protect it from being built at any point in the future.”