As the chair of Watford Rural Parish Council I was most surprised to see a political leaflet circulating from the Liberal Democrats in Oxhey Hall and Hayling telling residents that they have “further progressed” an application to secure ‘village green’ status for South Oxhey Playing Fields.

This designation, as they state, will give the area much greater protection and ensure it remains a green area for everyone to enjoy. What they omitted to say is that the application was the parish council’s idea way back in 2019 to ensure that our playing fields and open space are protected from applications to build on them. The parish council carefully researched what it would need to do to provide extra protection and make an application for ‘village green’ status.

The parish clerk learned that the council would have to arrange for a consultation across the entire parish area to go ahead and only then could we submit an application. This would obviously have been a costly exercise for local taxpayers only to confirm the need for something so evidently worthwhile and worse still, our application would be treated as ‘hostile’ as it was not being applied for by the landowner.

Both issues could therefore be overcome if the parish council, which it duly did, asked Three Rivers District Council, which owns the playing fields, to make the application on its behalf.

However, progress was very slow and in July 2019 Labour councillors had to take the extraordinary step of getting a motion passed at Three Rivers Council to instruct its own officers to provide the “fullest possible pro-active assistance” to the parish council in its objective of securing ‘village green’ status for the playing fields.

Eventually, two months later, the council stated it had instigated the process to make the ‘village green’ application in accordance with the wishes of the parish council.

After chasing for updates at both the February 2020 and July 2020 meetings, we were surprised to learn that it took until August 28 for the council to advise that it had finally submitted the application to Hertfordshire County Council.

Further, it was discovered nearly three years after the motion was passed that only recently has full paperwork finally been forwarded to the county council because Three Rivers Council, run by the Liberal Democrats, didn’t have a copy of the land registry for South Oxhey Playing Fields - the very land that it owns!

At every step of the way Labour councillors have had to make the running on this issue on behalf on the local community. We have not been deterred, even though the council has sought to keep documents from us. Far from progressing this application as they claim, the full story is that Liberal Democrats have been obstructive and unhelpful, having either ignored, delayed, or failed to understand the necessity for the submission which they now have the nerve to claim the credit for.

Cllr Joan King

Chair, Watford Rural Parish Council