Cricket Green Car Park

Tim Crowther, my predecessor as a  Weybridge councillor and a long-time campaigner to protect our open spaces, tells me that Weybridge cricket green is a registered village green (akin to common land status). The land is owned by the borough.  Under a deed of exchange the land is “to be kept unenclosed and … available as open space and recreation ground for the enjoyment and general benefit of the inhabitants of Weybridge”. The present car park on the green has been established by usage over the years.  The original use was to provide car parking space for the cricket club and for informal uses of the open space.  Such use has, however never formally or legally been approved, as it should have been under section 194 of the Law of Property Act 1925.  What has happened is that, over the years, the site has increasingly been used as a general car park for the surrounding area – by Manby Lodge School, by nearby residents, and by businesses and shop workers and visitors. Strictly speaking, the use of green for such purposes is illegal because of the wording of the deed of exchange and from the fact that approval by the Secretary of State under the LPA 1925 has never been sought or given. If proper consent for car parking on the village green been forthcoming it would undoubtedly been restricted solely to purposes connected with the recreational use of the green. If the council was now to seek retrospective consent Tim Crowther has no doubt that any consent would be so restricted.  Up until very recently, the status of the car park has been made clear by a (small) notice at the entrance to the car park stating that the use of the car park is restricted to visitors to the cricket club and the open space. It appears that this sign has recently been removed. The protection of common land and village greens from encroachment creep is of the utmost importance and it is disappointing that the council has, by default, allowed this to happen in the case of the cricket green car park and is now putting forward proposals which exacerbate the problem without doing anything to correct it. It is not necessary or desirable in Tim Crowther's view to “encourage a turnover of vehicles” at the cricket green car park by introducing a three hour parking limit.  Measures should now be taken, he suggests, to restrict the use of the car park to recreational users of the green.  The reintroduction of sign to this effect would be a start, coupled with measures of enforcement.  Without such action the car park will inevitably gain an unavoidable wider legitimacy and the hard-won status of an historic village green betrayed. I agree with Tim's assessment.