THE owner of a piece of land residents hope to get instated as a village green is threatening to turn it into a car park if his application to build a house for his family continues to be rejected.

Maulana Zubair Hamidi bought the land on the corner of Hornbeam Road and Chestnut Avenue, Buckhurst Hill, for a reported £32,000.

However Epping Forest District Council's planning department rejected his recent bid to build a four-bedroom house with garage, noting that the proposals are intrusive and would be an eyesore.

Mr Hamidi, who is Iman of the Manor Park Shahjala Jame Mosque and chairman of Newham Bangali Welfare Association and Education Trust, insisted he would appeal the decision and admitted he is prepared to go as far as it takes to secure rights to develop the land.

He said: "I don't want to fight the residents over this but the marketable value of the land is £500,000. If the council want a village green then they will have to pay me that value. I want to save my land from being a village green and I'm prepared to go to a public hearing and court.

"If the council won't grant the application then I will turn it into an open car park or a storage area."

The council said the proposals would result in an unacceptable loss of the existing area of open space which was previously used for informal recreational purposes by the local community.

And Mr Hamidi faces a battle over his appeal plans with Roding Valley Residents Committee, which was formed to save the land after it was sold by the Charles French Trust last year.

The committee is determined to see the land reinstated as public property and currently has two applications pending with Essex County Council to have the land registered as a village green.

Group spokesman Laurie Kubiak said: "Once again Epping Forest District Council has made it clear this piece of land is a village green awaiting registration. You only have to look at the reasons they gave for refusal. All the planning application has done has given the council the opportunity to provide yet another piece of evidence which supports the case for registration as a village green."

He added: "Mr Hamidi might have bought the land extremely cheaply but he must now realise there is a very good reason why the land was so cheap. I suppose you can't blame him for trying his luck but there does have to come a time when this silly game has to stop.

"He bought the land in the full knowledge there was a village green application pending and that planning permission for built development had just been refused - it was all in the auction catalogue and the sale papers - and that is why he got it cheap.

"He should stop wasting everyone's time and accept defeat gracefully."