The controversial £10 million sale of Hendon FC's ground to housing developers will move a step closer tonight (May 20) if Barnet Council rubber-stamps the club's move to Copthall stadium.

Just weeks after the council applied for permission to build a three-storey residential care home and 162 flats on the football club site in Claremont Road, Cricklewood, officers have recommended that it approves funding and a partnership to manage and operate Copthall in Mill Hill. The stadium would be used by both Hendon FC and athletics club Shaftesbury Barnet Harriers (SBH).

The move would pave the way for the Hendon FC chairman Ivor Arbiter and the council to sell the Claremont Road ground and pocket an estimated £5million each. Mr Arbiter is expected to spend £300,000 on improvements at Copthall, including a new pitch, new changings rooms and offices, better drainage, fencing, seating and turnstiles.

The proposals also include the council matching a £100,000 grant from Sport England to refurbish the track at Copthall. Shaftesbury Barnet were in danger of losing their licence to hold top-class athletics meetings at Copthall unless the money was made available.

A spokesman for the athletics club said: "It's excellent. It will mark a new start for Copthall, which will hopefully be a treasured possesion for its residents and for its youngsters who want to do athletics for the borough."

But in Cricklewood the plans have not been so well received. Resident Dorothy Badrick, chief executive of the UK Open Space Foundation, said selling the football ground would have a dramatic impact on the adjoining Clitterhouse playing fields a public open space designated as Metropolitan Open Land (MOL).

She said a restrictive covenant had been signed by the former Hendon Urban District Council in the 1920s which promised that when football ceased to be played at Claremont Road, it would revert back to open space.

"The irony is that Barnet Council, as the descendants of Hendon Urban District Council, should really be the people who are enforcing the covenant, not trying to break it. Whether the council is prepared to admit this or not, the only way you can get a ruling to build on a restrictive covenant is by going to the Lands Tribunal," she said.

Conservative councillor Mike Freer, cabinet member for value and effectiveness, said: "My understanding is that their concerns were that they didn't want any development on Clitterhouse playing fields. There was never going to be.

"The current site is viable for Hendon FC they want to move and this provides us with a brand new care home for the elderly and allows us to invest in Copthall. I think it's a good deal."