A VILLAGE hall and sports ground has been told it risks enforcement action for providing public use of its car park, including for wedding and funeral congregations.

Lydbrook Memorial Hall and Recreation Grounds Trust lets people attending the nearby Church of the Holy Jesus use its spaces, alongside a car repair business which parks customers’ cars there.

The trust says it is providing a public service by preventing the narrow neighbouring roads from being blocked by parked veheicles, but Forest Council planning officers say it has no right to allow the public or the business to use the car park between the B4234 and Church Road.

Having been told it needed to apply for a change of use, the trust submitted a plan to double the size of the car park from 30 spaces to 60 and convert it from sports club and hall use to public use.

But after further discussions with Forest planners, it has now withdrawn its plan and says it intends to apply for a certificate of lawfulness, on the basis that it has been used by the general public for more than 10 years.

However, the council has warned it that even if granted, that may still not cover the car repair business using spaces there, which is run by the owner of the nearby Collier Inn, who in turn lets Lydbrook Primary School staff use his pub car park.

Hall chairman Stuart Allison said: “The car park is essential to the village. It’s loss would cause serious road traffic problems to all users.

“The garage owner, who also owns the pub next door, allows teachers from the school to park their cars in his pub car park.

“If he was unable to use our car park, then he would be forced to remove this favour so his garage customers could use the pub car park.

“This would immediately cause safety issues as there is no other parking space available off road.

“Our entire concern is to provide the best compromise for the village and avoid the potential for serious congestion and possible road traffic accidents occurring if our car park is no longer freely available to the public, requiring everyone to park on our unsuitable roads.”

He said the initial plan to extend the car park onto an unsued area of the recreation ground behind the football pitch goal, was needed to “provide occasional parking for the congregations attending the local church for funerals and weddings.”

Sport England and Lydbrook Parish Council both said they had no objections to the scheme, which has now been withdrawn.

Forest planners have told the trust they will “delay taking further enforcement action” if a certificate of lawfulness application is submitted soon.

However, planning officer Mark Stringer warned the trust: “I should point out that, even if you were able to get a certificate of lawfulness for a public car park, the use of the car park for commercial purposes (eg storing cars that neeed to be repaired) might still constitute a planning breach.”