Liverpool mayor Joe Anderson has revealed that plans to sell off land that was close to Sefton Park for housing will now not go ahead.
However, Anderson insisted that the green space – which is known as Sefton Park Meadows – should be used as a community garden or for allotments.
This follows a green spaces review and a new local plan, which has allocated brownfield land for 37,000 homes.
Ken Aspinall, who is a member of Save Sefton Meadows, has said: “I’m happy but in a guarded way. It should be left as it is.”
Mayor Anderson, who broke the news on BBC Radio Merseyside, said that he had “paused” the plan to sell off the 11-acre green space site, which is located in Aigburth, ahead of a review and publication of the local plan.
“We’ve acquired a lot of things, for example the Garden Festival site, which is going to give us a lot of opportunities.”
In addition, Anderson claimed that he wants to see the meadows used by groups, such as Transforming Choice, who help people to beat addiction.
“It’s not a U-turn, we’ve got to find a workable use for it,” he said. “There are some gardens in Speke that produce fruit and veg, that’s the type of thing that people need more support from us.”
The Save Sefton Meadows campaign has been going for half a decade now, and has even had celebrity endorsements, with Sex and the City star Kim Cattrall – who grew up in the city – and spoke out against the sale back in 2014.
Chairman Mr Aspinall said the announcement “sounds good, but we won’t accept any building on there”.
“He’s talking allotments but we would like more information,” he said. “The park has been like that for 150 years and should be left like it is for the people of Liverpool.
“It’s a meadow, there are 120 mature trees. It’s a unique site. We’ll keep our campaign going until we know what’s proposed.”
