Why I'm prepared to sell stadium land

3:28pm Friday 15th February 2008

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A LANDOWNER said he offered his farmland to make way for a football stadium and housing because residents have made the fields "unviable" for farming.

Andrew Crowe, who owns the land designated for a new Braintree Town football stadium and hundreds of homes, spoke for the first time about why he had entered into a contractual agreement with developer WG Developments.

Residents have launched a petition over the development, but Mr Crowe said he was no longer making any money from the site off Pod's Brook Road, Braintree, because residents had been abusing the land, which had been in his family since 1941.

He said the land had become contaminated because residents had walked on it, dumped their rubbish on it and let their dogs foul on it.

Mr Crowe, 53, said: "The locals don't appreciate the land or understand the land.

"They just feel it's there for their own personal space and it's not - it's private farmland and there's a cash crop on that field."

Mr Crowe said the land was coming to the end of its life and he needed to find something else to do with it. He would like to see a stadium as well as housing to give something back to the community.

Kevin Fenn, 26, a technical consultant, of Springfields, who is behind the campaign group Save Our Fields Today, denied residents had been abusing the land.

"The land has only been used for growing hay and the residents only walk around the outside," he said.

Wayne Gold, managing director of WG Developments, has offered residents in Gilda Terrace, whose homes would back on to the site, 120 per cent of the market value of their property so they do not have to endure the "aggravation" and "disruption" of the development.

George Worster, 70, who is retired and has lived in Gilda Terrace for 34 years, said he agreed to sell his home because he and his wife Kathleen wanted to move to Colchester.