An ongoing row over the sale of a plot of seafront land has been branded a waste of time and money by Canterbury City Council.

The council has been threatened with judicial review by campaigners fighting to reverse the decision to sell land in Sea Street to developers for £150,000 - a figure they claim was far below its value.

Now the council is trying to warn campaigners that it will not back down and a review would be an expensive and unproductive step.

The threat of legal action has been put forward by the Oval Chalet Preservation Community Group (OCPC) and the Whitstable Society.

The groups have instructed a firm of solicitors - Richard Buxton - to challenge the council’s decision to sell the land to Sea Street Developments Ltd in December 2014.

But the council has taken the stance that even if the campaigners are successful with a judicial review, the council would take the same decision to sell the land again.

City council spokesman Rob Davies said: "We are well aware of what the community wants us to do, but we have now made it clear on several occasions that the legal advice we have received is that this is a binding contract that we cannot get out of.

"We therefore have no choice but to oppose the judicial review to protect our position, even though this is money and time that we would far rather not be spending.

“In fact, our legal advice is that even if we were to somehow lose the judicial review, we could not be required to withdraw from the contract.

"All we could be required to do is take the decision again, and that would have to be the same decision due to the binding nature of the contract.

“For this reason, the judicial review is going to spend money that both the campaigners and the council can ill afford, and it cannot result in the outcome they ultimately want."

The judicial review is going to spend money that both the campaigners and the council can ill afford, and it cannot result in the outcome they ultimately want - Rob Davies, Canterbury City Council

The council response follows a letter sent to councillors by Whitstable Society president Angela Boddy last week expressing regret that both her group and OCPC will have to fight the Canterbury City Council (CCC) in court.

The letter read: "On behalf of the community, we sincerely regret that we must continue our legal action for judicial review against CCC.

"This is necessary given that CCC does not appear to be taking the numerous errors and shortcomings that have occurred in the sale process of the Oval seriously, and does not seem to want to put matters right."

Mrs Boddy's letter, on behalf of the Whitstable Society and OCPC, gave the council one final chance to consider its position carefully before committing to a course of action in the courts which they claim will be extremely expensive, wasteful of tax payers' money and embarrassing.

City council spokesman Mr Davies added: “We also want to clarify a comment made in the campaigners’ press release that we have admitted to “numerous errors”. We have not.

"We do accept that a requirement for open space should have been incorporated into the contract, but this is far different to the campaigners’ claim.

“As we have said all along, the correct place for this issue to be resolved is through the planning process and that process is continuing.”