AFTER nine years and almost £1m spent on public inquiries the sale of Barnet Football Stadium has officially been closed by the council.

Four investigations and public inquiries have been held by the council's auditors Price Waterhouse Cooper into allegations the land was sold off for a fraction of its value at £10,000.

However, in November 2008 the final auditor report cleared four councillors and two officers of any wrongdoing, although costs had already spiralled to nearly £1m by that time.

Last night council leader Lynne Hillan officially drew a line under the saga, which was sparked after complaints from three members of the public.

She told the cabinet meeting: “This case has gone on for a considerable amount of time. Expenses have mounted up and unfortunately the council and the tax payer have had to pay out the bet part of £1m on these inquiries.

“It's an awful lot of money. In 2005 cabinet asked if we could have some clarification from PWC and have the costs looked at as we considered it to be an exceptional amount of money.

“All the advice says we should not take it any further. My personal view is we should not spend another penny of tax payers' money on this.

“I'm appalled that without any intention from us we have spent so much money already. This matter is now closed.”

The rather muted meeting also looked at the libraries strategy, with councillor Robert Rams reiterating several times his words to the Times Series that it is a services, not building, reorganisation.

A public question on the matter from trade unionist Vicky Morris asked if the purpose of the strategy, brought out at the same time as draft estate management plans, was to find which libraries to sell off.

Cllr Rams replied: “There's no point sticking our head in the sand and hoping everything is going to be alright.

“The reality is we're going to have huge cuts that we're going to have to adapt to. We aim to have create better services for less money.

“I don't want to pre judge the outcome of the consultation but I think by the end of this we will have more places people can go to get books out, not less.”

The biggest agenda item of the evening was the draft local development framework, a document which sets out a vision for developments in Barnet for the next 15 years.

Presented by development supremo Councillor Richard Cornelius the weighty tome, he said, was restricted by national and regional development policies.

He added: “This document is Barnet's future. No-one can ever accuse us of not consulting about this, every community has been contacted and some have chosen to respond.

“It's always said of this document it's not quite as we would like it in Barnet. We have national and regional government that have their own views on what we should do.

“Really it's the best we can get for Barnet. We have to choose that middle way.”

Despite the importance of the document no councillors chose to question any of the draft recommendations, with only Cllr Hillan adding her endorsement to it.

Councillor Brian Coleman, the transport and environment member, was the only absentee from the meeting, ahead of tonight's leadership challenge to Cllr Hillan from Cllr Mark Shooter.