THE district council has agreed to remove the covenant on a former community sports hall leaving the way clear for it to be sold off to a private bidder.

Epping Forest District Council was due to impose a condition on the removal of the covenant at Loughton Sports Hall forcing its owner Epping Forest College to build a replacement sports facility but its cabinet voted not to.

As the Guardian reported last week, the college has no money to build a new sports hall and needs the profit from the sale to help pay off debts for its new £35million building.

Council leader Di Collins said: “They're not going to be able to afford the new sports hall so we have left it to them, if they are able to build something in the future. We want the college to survive and so do lots of other parties. We didn't want them to stop moving forwards, and we don't want to lose the new building.”

Debden Community Association had used the hall to host a variety of sports clubs for 60 years, and has now been left homeless.

Association chairman Roger Davis said: “We have now got no sports facilities at all. They've been taken away by the college. There was an outside chance we might have worked something else out, but it seems that's been killed off by the council.

“We have lost out all round. The DCA has virtually no members and we're without a home. I'm rather dispirited.”

Epping Forest College is now free to complete a deal it had already agreed in principle to sell the building and its land to a private developer for a care home.

College vice-principal David Latham said: “This change of use approved by the council allows the College to relinquish the land in line with plans agreed over five years ago. Over the past few months, following the reopening of the hall after expensive asbestos removal, the DCA have declined to use the facility”