RESIDENTS fighting to save a former sports field from redevelopment are challenging a building company's legal right to appeal.

Developer Novalong is appealing against Greenwich Council's failure to decide its planning application to develop the Gaelic Athletic football ground in Avery Hill Road, New Eltham.

The company had hoped to build 261 homes, in three and four-storey blocks, on the 12.8 acre site owned by the Gaelic Athletic Association, together with a medical centre and a community hall. But the application never went before the council.

Now residents' association Residents Against Gaelic Environmental Destruction (RAGED), made up of people who live mainly in Bexley, are trying to prove the company's appeal is out of time.

The company needed to appeal within six months of the deadline for dealing with the application.

Residents claim documentation shows the cut-off date was June last year, not December as the company claims.

If true, this would put the company's appeal, lodged in June this year, out of time.

Residents are also hedging their bets by launching opposition to the appeal by launching a petition and organising hundreds of letters of objection.

The sports ground was in Bexley borough until boundary changes in 1994 transferred it to Greenwich, but the bulk of the homes backing onto the site remain in Bexley.

Residents won one major battle when Greenwich Council rejected a planning inspector's recommendation the site be re-zoned for mixed use along the lines of the company's plans.

The council reconfirmed the designation as community open space when it reviewed its Unitary Development Plan in June.

Residents will be collecting signatures on their petition and handing out draft letters of objection by the shops in Halfway Street, Sidcup, and in New Eltham on Saturday between 9am and 6pm.

The closing date for objections is September 19 and draft objection letters, a list of reasons for objecting and copies of the petition are also available from RAGED by calling Malcolm Bond on 020 8300 0345 or by emailing ragedresidents@ragedresidents.org.uk