Town Councillor Ken Robson is outraged that the County Council are charging a fee to his Residents’ Association for using the Green at Christopher Walk for a community Fun Day. Ken has used the green for a few years bringing the community together for social and recreational purposes. Volunteers work hard organising these events and they are very popular. The charge made by the County Council is seen as been very mean. Newton News has suggested to the ACORN Residents Association they may get round paying fees if they register the land used for community events as a village green.
Registering a Village Green The Commons Act allows applications to be made to register land as a new village green. You will need to show that the land in question has been used: • for a period of at least 20 years for the purposes of lawful sports and pastimes • ‘as of right’ (for example, without force, secrecy or permission) by the inhabitants of a locality, or a neighbourhood within a locality. Application for the registration of land as a town or village green is currently required by the submission of Form 44 available fromwww. gov.uk Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affair
Council Explanation . . .
Durham County Council have confirmed this is a standard admin fee that was agreed by Cabinet and has been in place for two years. Events licences take up a lot of officer time in checking relevant documents are in place to be in a position to grant permission for Council land to be occupied in a safe fashion. Therefore a fee was introduced and purposely kept low to reflect the fact that the Council wishes to support community events being held. But you will appreciate in these tough financial times we must seek a fee for the officer time involved. Unfortunately this is a standard fee that all community groups pay for events licences and it is therefore not possible to waive this fee for the Acorn Residents Association event in isolation.
