Village green campaigners urge more to sign petition

Members of the Toddington, Littlehampton and Wick Village Green Association – whose supporters include Bognor Regis and Littlehampton MP, Nick Gibb – have drawn up a petition in a last-ditch effort to save the Old School Field site, between the A259 and The Littlehampton Academy.

The battle comes more than a month on from an unpopular decision by West Sussex County Council’s rights of way committee to refuse full village green status to the 15-acre field.

Campaign leader, Nick Sutton, of Toddington Park, said: “Last month’s decision was a bitter blow.

“This petition is a battle against the increasing rise of new houses being built in our area. This is the last green space left for the community.

“We feel that if we don’t draw a line in the sand now we will have no green space at all.”

At last month’s rights of way committee meeting, held at County Hall, Chichester, the campaigners unsuccessfully applied for the field to be granted village green status. Committee members felt that the legal criteria of the field being continuously used by the public for 20 years had not been meet.

However, committee chairman councillor Bill Acraman, threw the village green campaigners a life-line, when he advised them to make a renewed bid, under the Commons Act 2006, for the voluntary dedication of the land as a town or village green.

The bid would mean that only a portion of the land would be retained by the council for development, potentially as a medical centre for the community.

During the meeting, he said he, and members of his committee, would back any petition for this form of application, during a full council meeting.

Speaking on Tuesday, Mr Acraman said he would still be supporting such a move, as long as the petition could garner enough support from the community.

He said: “I am still behind the petition. Whether it needs to come up to a full council meeting, time will tell. Speaking in a broader sense, it’s the council’s responsibility to support the leisure activities of the population as a whole and to encourage green issues.

“The presence of green land is important and we should not let everything go to developers. We have got to be able to say, on occasion, ‘no’ and to see that the community is supported.”

For the petition to be discussed at the next full council meeting, in December, it needs more than 3,000 signatures. To date, it has generated about 500 signatures in support. Anyone wishing to add their support can use the form, printed in the current edition of the Littlehampton Gazette (Novemebr 24).