Are you doing this on your own?
Do you have any past experience with this sort of opposition?
Are you acting with others?

I'm just a bit player in this although I am probably the most affected.
The Friends of the park in question is a well established group, and
includes a surveyor experienced in this kind of thing.
The initial plan has been slung out, but it was hinted that a reduced
density version might get through. I could live with that, but The
Friends are going for the jugular and trying to dream up some kind of
park related use for the building.

I have a fair amount of experience of fighting of both having Planning
Permission applied AND opposed

A few tips. (Without knowing where or how much land is involved)

Worth looking into ..................

If it is Council Owned Park there may be a Covenant on the land 'For the
Benefit of the locals' sort of application.
The Park may have been given to the local community by a Landed Gentry
years ago with restrictions.
The House itself may have a Covenant on for the same reason
There is the possibility of slapping 'Listed Building' on it because of
its past use.

According to the local paper the land was transferred to the council
from The Charity Commissioners in 1904 and there were plans for a
keeper's lodge. However, this does not appear in Kelly's Directory until
1916, so one assumes it was built some 10 years later. I guess I could
verify this with The Land Registry.

The local Council owned a piece of land near me and applied to
themselves for planning permission for a development of Bungalows. I
opposed it because of the lack of sewerage facilities and the capability
of coping with more houses. I put a sting in the tail of the letter, to
the effect that should they grant planning permission and build, 'and if
as a result numbers XX, YY, and ZZ get flooded they will have the right
to sue the Council for neglect" (Neighbours HAD been flooded because of
the surface water problem and XX, YY, and ZZ would be the next in line)
The Chief Exec was not very pleased with me, the near neighbours were :-)

The latest I have been involved with, along with A LOT of people, is
again with the possibility of a development, is saving our local Theatre
www.shanklintheatre.com . That involved having a Grade II Listed
Building slapped on it at the last minute. Don't know who did it, but it
worked.

Yes, strange that. We have a civic society and I believe their advice
was to try and get it put on the council's "buildings of architectural
or historic interest" list. Not a cat in hell's chance of getting it
listed apparently. I don't see it's of any interest to anyone, but I'll
keep that to myself.

There are some ideas for you, BUT, they are ideas which might not apply
or have a wax cats chance in hell, but if you and a group of people are
determined, crack on.

One SURE way of stopping it, is buy it. Not as daft as it may seem. I
had a piece of land and got planning permission for two pairs of houses,
but I had to buy a house with a wide side garden to drive a road in. The
house was on the open market when I bought it. People opposed the
planning application. It was flung out, "You could have stopped it by
buying the house and land"

Mike


Thanks for the tips. My impression is that the planners are universally
opposed to the scheme but that their decisions must be robust enough not
to be overturned on appeal. Same everywhere I imagine.