BATTLES over land use have hit a major charity donor in Durham city, a public inquiry has heard. The Durham City Freemen give hundreds of pounds to a range of good causes every year, with cash raised from its historic interests in the city. But bosses at the organisation, which is attempting to halt Durham County Council’s (DCC) plans for a car park on protected land at the Sands to serve its new £50 million HQ, claim disputes with the local authority have hampered its philanthropic efforts. “The land for the car park is a modest area of the wider Sands, the Freemen have common rites of grazing going back for centuries, and they have been recorded since at least 1860,” said Nicola Allen, a planning law specialist acting for the City of Durham Parish Council and the Freemen.