"Keep out"

THEYDON Bois Youth Centre is to be fenced off by Essex County Council to ward off trespassers.

County council officer Judith Sargent proposed to erect a fence costing £2,110 around the Loughton Lane site to stop "community groups and individuals accessing the county council's site without their consent".

Theydon Bois Pre-School Group chairman Thea Buisson described the move as "disgraceful" and maintained that the group had used the area for many years as a play area and for nature trails.

She said: "They're taking our rights away as well as part of the village. It has always been there for everybody to use and they are effectively saying to local people: stuff you, it's ours'."

The county council agreed to the expenditure, in concert with another application to extend its war chest from £25,000 to £30,000 to fight Epping Forest District Council's decision to refuse outline plans to level the site to make way for housing.

The additional funding is expected to pay for fees incurred to cover the additional two days of the planning appeal, held at the Civic Offices, Epping, last week, after a Government planning inspector deemed it necessary to cater for the wealth of local residents wishing to make representations.

Theydon Bois district councillor Kay Rush said of the extra funding: "It makes me very angry indeed that they're attempting to take away our youth club and making us pay for it."

A further £7,500 expected to be spent by the county council on a highways engineer's report has been described by Mrs Rush as "a tremendous waste of money".

She said: "The highways report has already been done so why another? Wasn't it done correctly in the first place?"