The Friends call for Heritage Green to be given Village Green status

Deer on Heritage Green, the field at the junction of Caldershaw Road and Cut Lane, Norden

The Friends of Heritage Green hope the desire to achieve Village Green status for Heritage Green field in Norden will be boosted by the Open Spaces Society’s call on local authorities and developers to make 2017 the Year of the Village Green, by voluntarily registering their land as greens.

http://www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/2/news-headlines/107245/make-2017-the-year-of-the-village-green-says-the-open-spaces-society

Mark Hope of the Friends of Heritage Green said: "Heritage Green, the field next to Cut Lane and Caldershaw Road in Norden, is a case in point where it makes absolute sense for the Council to voluntarily dedicate the field as a Village Green.

"Heritage Green has been a valuable leisure and recreational space for residents for many years, particularly since the creation of the Heritage Green, Heritage Ridge and Edendfield Park estates in the early 1990s, which all butt up to Heritage Green.

"To this day, Heritage Green floods whenever there is heavy rain and the subsidence problems encountered nearby in the early 1990s continue on and around the field, so it is highly likely that the field is not fit to build upon so has little or no commercial value.

"This strengthens the argument for the field to be retained as a leisure and recreational space forever and for Rochdale Council to voluntarily dedicate the land as a Village Green.

"The Friends of Heritage Green has repeatedly communicated with Rochdale Council asking their officers to consider voluntarily dedicating Heritage Green as a Village Green, arguing the case that it is a valuable community asset, that it is unfit to build upon and that it would save Rochdale Council a lot of money and time if they did so.

"The Friends of Heritage Green has also urged Rochdale Council to undertake its own ground survey to assess the suitability of the land for building purposes, which the Friends of Heritage Green understand would cost in the order of two or three hundred pounds, but Rochdale Council steadfastly refuses to entertain this suggestion.

"Recently the Friends of Heritage Green escalated the matter to Mr Rumbelow, Chief Executive of Rochdale Council, but sadly the pleas of the Friends and the call of the Open Space Society has failed to make any impact and Mr Rumbelow’s has advised the Friends of Heritage Green that his Officers will neither recommend that Heritage Green is voluntarily dedicated nor undertake the survey.

"We will continue to try and persuade the appropriate councillors and officers of the merits of voluntarily dedicating Heritage Green as a Village Green and of undertaking a relatively inexpensive survey.

"The alternative is for the residents (and the Council) to continue with the tortuous and costly process of applying to register Heritage Green as a Village Green.

"Rochdale Council has delegated the decision on registration to Cheshire East Council and has approved the payment of all Cheshire East Council’s costs and any external legal costs, which they have estimated to be in the order of £10,000.

“In these times of austerity for Local Authorities, it seems ludicrous to me for Rochdale Council to waste money on this, but unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we can’t save them from themselves.”

Mark Robinson, Assistant Director for Economy and Environment at Rochdale Borough Council, said: “As Rochdale Borough Council is the owner of the land in question, it is felt that if the authority is required to make a decision which may affect the future value of the land, a potential conflict of interest could arise. The council has therefore delegated this decision to Cheshire East Council to bring an additional element of impartiality and independence into the process.”

The processing of the application continues and the Friends of Heritage Green awaits the next stage, which is the publication of a formal public notice that an application for registration has been made.

At some stage, the Friends of Heritage Green will be required to present its application and case at a public inquiry whereupon all the evidence supplied to date will be reviewed and further evidence presented probably in the form of both written and verbal statements. The Friends of Heritage Green will have to prove that Heritage Green has been used freely by many residents for more than twenty years.

The application included 126 completed questionnaires filled in by residents, predominantly from the three estates that butt up to Heritage Green.

Mr Hope said: "Hopefully this weight of evidence will be sufficient to prove the case but the Friends of Heritage Green would like to hear from any other local residents who would be happy, when the time comes, to provide evidence in the form of personal statements of their experience of using Heritage Green."