PLEASE sign our PM's Petition

[thingybobby]

On behalf of our estate community, I successfully got our Play Area registered as a Village Green, earlier this year, after much team effort.

However, the landowner still denies us full access of use and (literally) drives off playing children, whilst our Council "monitor" the situation, instead of getting him before the Court.

If you could PLEASE go to Petition to: Enforce Village Green Regulations. | Number10.gov.uk and register your support for action AND possibly pass it on to your friends/colleagues for theirs too, we'd be most grateful.

We would be assured of a response from the PM's Office with over 500 signatories.

Noel

[NOG]

Let me get this right you have registered someone elses land as a Village Green and now you want us to sign a petition so you can use it.

I am going to register next doors bathroom as a rain forest so I can play with the monkeys.

[Fluorescent green]

Hi

You just get a well written letter, it will admit nothing and be full of nice words.
You would be better off chaining yourself to some steel railings, tried and tested, its worked before.

As much press as possible, without a large number of "activists" you don't have much chance.

FG

[thingybobby]

Let me get this right you have registered someone elses land as a Village Green and now you want us to sign a petition so you can use it.

I am going to register next doors bathroom as a rain forest so I can play with the monkeys.

Not exactly, the Play Area was designated from the start as such on our estate (about 1980) and SHOULD have been signed over to the Council, who never checked, but maintained it nonetheless and erected furniture.

A developer recently managed to acquire the land, intending to use it as access to a landlocked adjacent plot he wanted to develop.

When we defeated his Planning Apps, he fenced off the Play Area and deprived our kids use of it.

To get Village Green status, you have to show 20+ years of communal use.

Now the Council are dragging their heels about making him take down the fencing and using kids as target practice when the owner drives on it.

[bubblewrap]

I haven't your petition as I live so far away & think this is a local issue.

I suggest you contact your MP to raise this in the House of Commons or with the appropriate minister.
I know this is an obvious course of action & I apologise if you have already done this.
I Don't know which part of Barnsley you live in but just for information here are two MPs Web addresses.

Eric Illsley MP: Home
Michael Clapham MP, Barnsley West & Penistone (TheyWorkForYou.com)

[pdblake]

What happens to the developer's money then? Does the land just get taken from him?

Doesn't sound right to me. If he was able to get his hands on the land then someone must have sold it to him, sound more like your problem is with them not him.

[thingybobby]

What happens to the developer's money then? Does the land just get taken from him?

Doesn't sound right to me. If he was able to get his hands on the land then someone must have sold it to him, sound more like your problem is with them not him.

There's the rub...........this play area SHOULD have been signed over to the Council on completion of our estate, similar to Section 106 providing green space these days.

The original developer went bust, so shouldn't have been able to retain the land as an asset, but the new developer acquired it from him, although the Land Registry doesn't reveal any monies being paid.

The land now remains property of the new developer, but is now under Commons Act legislation (can't be enclosed, or encroached upon by fencing, or driven upon without express permission of Sec. State.......all of which is continuing) and particularly cannot be built upon.

This land was ours since 1980, but through Council incompetence and dodgy dealings has been taken from us and no-one but us seems prepared to take a stand.

All the suggestions offered have already been pursued and as for it being a local issue............ similar green spaces are under attack all over the country (I've been contacted for advice on Village Green Registration by at least four other groups, so I'll now get this thread removed and thank the rest of you for your apathy/hostility.

[smallblueplanet]

...

All the suggestions offered have already been pursued and as for it being a local issue............ similar green spaces are under attack all over the country (I've been contacted for advice on Village Green Registration by at least four other groups, so I'll now get this thread removed and thank the rest of you for your apathy/hostility.

Perhaps if you'd given us some of this information in your OP then there wouldn't have been apathy/hostility from so many?

I've signed - Good luck with your fight.

[Glutton4...]

I don't think your comment 'apathy/hostility' will win you much support! I feel you may be over reacting a little? It's obvious you feel strongly about this, and I'm sure anyone else in the situation would feel the same.

Having read through the posts above for a second time, it seems to me that most of the responses were from people seeking further information. As for the comment made by NOG, that certainly wasn't hostile - it's NOG's fabulous sense of humour, and I for one laughed out loud when I read it.

This situation happens all the time with 'new-build' estates, and must be very frustrating. I support your cause, and wish you well with it.

[pdblake]

The original developer went bust, so shouldn't have been able to retain the land as an asset, but the new developer acquired it from him, although the Land Registry doesn't reveal any monies being paid.

Could the new developer be one of the old developers creditors? The land could have been signed over as payment.

I can understand how you feel, but I can also see it from the developer's point of view too. You want a playground that, presumably from Council incompetence, was never properly aquired, and he want's access to his other plot.

Can't you come to a compromise? How big is the land? Is there room for an access drive around one edge and use the rest as a play area? At the end of the day, rights or wrongs of it aside, it's his land.

How would you like it if you owned a paddock adjacent to your house and, for say the past twenty years or so, you've let the locals use it as a picnic area, or for walking their dogs, just because you weren't using it. Then one day you decide you want to keep horses (or whatever) and fence it off. Along comes a local and gets the place declared as a village green.

[StephenH]

I've signed, and will mention it on another forum I post on.

[allotmentlady]

Good luck, I have not signed it as I AM not local and feel it would be worthwhile do go doorknocking in your local area, gaining as many signatures as possible for your cause.

[Peter]

Petitions to No 10 are a complete and utter waste of time.

All that will happen is that an anodyne and meaningless response about how the Prime Minister sympathises with you will be posted in response on the tail of the petition.

If you want something to happen get a local newspaper on your side and pressure the council through it, if you could get a national paper on board eveb better.