PLANS to turn a patch of rubbish-strewn land in Derby into a temporary car park will not go ahead because of a legal arrangement.
Duckworth Square was once home to a shopping centre but the buildings were torn down in 2003.
It has yet to be redeveloped despite a number of proposals and the owner of the land, Metropolitan Housing Trust, which had previously wanted to build low-cost housing on the land, is now looking to sell it.
Councillors on the authority's corporate scrutiny and climate change board had proposed that the council buy the land and turn it into a temporary car park.
But it has now emerged that this would not be possible as a covenant on the land forbids it from becoming a car park.
This is left over from when NCP Car Parks owned the land before selling it to Metropolitan, a council spokeswoman said. NCP had not wanted a car park built on the land.
Council leader Paul Bayliss confirmed that the covenant "prohibits it from being a car park".
He said: "The intention is to put something on site that would enhance service delivery to the public.
"It wouldn't be retail and it certainly wouldn't be a car park because we can't do that."
Asked for more detail, Mr Bayliss said: "We are in the process of some quite complex negotiations with public and private partners and, until we have concluded them, it would be remiss of me to comment publicly."
He said he expected the authority to make an announcement about what would happen to Duckworth Square later this year.
Councillor Mark Tittley, chairman of the corporate scrutiny and climate change board, said the group of nine councillors on the committee had not been aware of the covenant.
Asked if he was disappointed that the temporary car park idea could not go ahead, he said: "As far as I'm concerned, we've made the recommendation, it's been given due consideration and I'm quite happy for that to be the case.
"I wasn't aware of the covenant and nor were other members of the committee.
"But I have to say that we did get good support from the officers and other stakeholders in producing the report."
Mr Bayliss has previously said that the council would only buy the land as a last resort.
