More news about Hopefield Animal Sanctuary, and hopefully some good news for their many supporters worried about possible redevelopment of their land.

This morning the leader of Brentwood Borough Council, Cllr Barry Aspinell, spoke to Phoenix FM about the council’s desire to purchase the land from Tesco that houses the sanctuary. Since then, the Chair of the Council’s Community Committee, Cllr Karen Chilvers, has confirmed that a meeting is to be held before the end of the month which will give the sanctuary more protection.

Karen came in to talk exclusively to Mike Porter about Hopefield’s request to nominate their land as a community asset. If agreed, the landowner must tell the Council if they intend to sell it. If a group wants to buy the asset they can trigger a 6 month period to give them a chance to raise the money, but the landowner can still sell at the going market rate. This would therefore prevent a quick sale of Hopefield’s land.

The Council have called an urgent meeting on Tuesday 27 January at 6.45pm at the Town Hall to consider this application. The meeting is only expected to last 15 minutes but the public is invited to attend if they wish – and Cllr Chilvers would love to see as many people from Hopefield as possible to support the application.

You can hear Karen talking about this again here:

Click here for more information about Community Assets.

Mike is also a Professional Voiceover checkout his work HERE