CAMPIGNERS behind the successful attempt to win town green status for Warneford Meadow have called on a local health trust to accept defeat.

The Warneford Meadow campaigners say Oxford-shire and Buckinghamshire Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust should drop any plans to renew the battle by trying to get the meadow’s town green designation overturned.

And they warned the trust that any appeal would only result in public money being wasted on another lengthy legal battle.

The warning came as more than 120 residents packed Oxford’s Southfield Golf Club to celebrate the meadow being given town-green status Residents in Headington mounted a long campaign to preserve the 18-acre meadow next to Warneford Hospital after the mental health trust, the owner of the land, announced plans to develop the site.

Last month, Oxfordshire County Council backed a planning inspector’s recommendation that Warneford Meadow should be granted town green status. It followed a public inquiry last year into whether the site should be declared a town green.

The campaigners’ May Day meeting was addressed by Oxford environmentalist Mark Lynas and Prof Sir Muir Gray, chief knowledge officer of the NHS.

Closing the meeting, Paul Deluce, the man who applied to register the meadow as a town green in December 2006, said “I hope the NHS will accept that the council reached its decision after a very thorough public inquiry and won’t waste more time and public money fighting it in the courts, but instead will talk to local people about how to protect the wildlife of this lovely meadow and enhance its value as an amenity for residents, hospital patients and staff.”

But it was still not clear this week whether the mental health authority would be appealing against the decision.

A trust spokesman said: “We are currently in discussion with our legal advisers following our board meeting last week.”

The land was bought in 1918 to provide outdoor recreation for patients.

But in 2006 the trust submitted an application to create accommodation for up to 1,950 students and key workers, with the numbers later scaled down to 685.

Campaigners gave evidence at the public inquiry in May last year to show local residents had used the meadow for recreation for at least 20 years.