Wigan Council Trying to take back land

Some years ago a piece of land at the side of a house in scholes was a site for fly tipping and other rubbish. The residents who lived next to the site tried to get the site cleaned up but the Council refused saying that it was not their land so they did not need to do it. Even the local residents association tried to get it cleaned up but no success. After years of trying they had enough and cleaned the site up at their own cost. Now the Council say that they want the site back to how it was and also for them to remove the fence that they put up to stop more fly tipping and they did make their garden bigger. I got involved with this over 14 mths ago and got the Council to lease the land to the residents to resolve the issue they agreed that this was a good way forward and I thought all was okay until just before the signing of the lease the Council planning dept wrote to the residents saying that they needed planning permission and then said that this was most likely to be refused.

The Council have now said that they plan to take the land back and use the law to do this if needed. This is ridiculous as the cost of this will far out weigh the legal cost and maintenance cost. Given the confusion at the beginning where the Council was saying this was not their land I feel that the simple thing is to let the residents lease the land and the Council to retain ownership. But the Council want to retain their cake and eat it.