FOREST Council leader Tim Gwilliam has blasted a overnment housing quango’s repeated delay in handing over the former Five Acres leisure centre site as ‘politics or incompetence’.

Homes England has now written to the Forest of Dean Council to say there will be yet more delay in handing the site over to them while it resubmits its application for ministerial approval.

It says it has to ensure ‘due diligence’ where signifiant investment is involved.

And furious council leader Cllr Tim Gwilliam (Ind, Berry Hill) said yesterday: “Homes England is, in my opinion, damaging this council and the district and we will now begin a robust and positive campaign to ensure ownership of that site is in the hands of this council without further delay.”

According to the council, a deal was agreed more than a year and a half ago to transfer the site to the council’s ownership, as part of the whole Cinderford Northern Quarter development, which saw Gloucestershire College transfer its Forest campus from Five Acres last summer and the leisure centre close last autumn.

“Homes England insisted on the closure of the leisure centre to enable the transfer of the site with vacant possession and yet we still wait. Politics or incompetence, I care little now,” stormed Cllr Gwilliam.

“I suspect the community will rise again and I fully support their right to do so. They too have been misled, they too have been let down and they too have been left without facilities that they should have a right to use.

“No more messing about, no more games, we want our leisure centre back and we are going to get it.

“Although disappointing, it seemed understandable that an organisation who wanted to sell something for £1 that they paid £2.5m for (and expected to recoup much of that) may need to get a sign off to do it.

“Homes England put in that request last year and we have been waiting and waiting for ministerial approval. Officers have continually chased Homes England for a response, letters have gone to the Secretary of State and we even asked the local MP to get involved, all to no avail.

“Yesterday, we received notification from Homes England that they do not now think their submission to the Secretary of State is robust enough and have officially withdrawn it.

“No discussion, no timeline as to when it might get resubmitted. A submission they put in last year. They now decide it isn’t right?

“This council in the last two years has done everything asked of it by Homes England. We have put up with the passing deadlines, set up all the public groups, paid to have all the studies done in readiness to develop that site in line with community aspirations and to the financial detriment of the council.

“Delay, delay, delay, then see who forms the new cabinet and if it remains a coalition, pull the rug out completely,” he added.

“I don’t know if that’s true or if it is a case of utter incompetence from a government organisation.

“Homes England have agreed to sell a site, that there was no public consultation on them buying, to this council to achieve something the community have been fighting for for seven years.

“They insisted on the closure of the leisure centre to enable the transfer of the site with vacant possession and yet we still wait.”

A Homes England spokeswoman said: “It is only right we are careful with public money.

“We are therefore further reviewing all the issues prior to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government making its decision.”