Romsey
| NEWS | | | | OTHER SPORT |  | | | CINEMA | | |
|
|
|
Land ownership battle looms
LOCAL historian, Geoff Morris, claims land currently subject to a High Court ownership battle is probably Romsey's only publicly-owned place and he and others want to make sure that it stays that way.
Mr Morris said there has been controversy over who owned the land between the vicarage and Romsey Abbey since the mid-1980, when plans were announced to build the current vicar's home.
"Now it has become clear that most of the land is owned by the people of Romsey and is held in trust by Test Valley Borough Council for use by them as parkland.
"TVBC are the trustees and the people of Romsey are the beneficiaries of the trust," said Mr Morris, who added that papers produced at a meeting between people interested in the land and a legal representative from TVBC in 1999 showed that, in 1984, the Church's solicitors had made an ownership claim on the land fronting the vicarage.
"Even from the little amount of work I had done at the time, it was immediately obvious the claim was erroneous. What the solicitors had done was to quote only part of the historical evidence and infer from that there had been a transfer of land to the Church," said the retired chartered physicist.
Since the early years of the dispute, Charity Commission bosses have recognised a charitable trust and instructed TVBC to register the organisation with the council, said Mr Morris, who added: "It seemed a great success at the time, but had our group known the distress this would cause householders who also required access across the trust land, we would never have asked the question in the first place.
"But once a legal process like this has begun, it cannot be stopped and has to be taken to its conclusion. Most of the land is now registered with the Land Registry and the existence of the trust is noted on the documents.
"Quite recently, the Church has insisted on its claim of ownership of the land and rights to park on the tarmac area."
Mr Morris maintains that the borough council and the Church are in "secret negotiation" and, since a High Court hearing, the council's lawyer dealing with the case has been instructed not to contact the group.
"It is remarkable that these negotiations are going on. The land is clearly owned by the inhabitants of Romsey and held in trust by TVBC, yet they are discussing the future of our land with the Church, which, as a corporate body, is not even a beneficiary.
"It is possible that they will find a legal way around the trust to their mutual satisfaction. If they do, the people of Romsey will be the losers," concluded 74-year-old Mr Morris, who has been writing a book on the story of the controversial piece of land.
When asked for a response, Test Valley legal chief, Susan Tovey, said: "There is nothing I can tell you at the moment, because we are involved in High Court litigation and the case is subjudice. It's been a long-running matter."
And the Church declined to comment for the same reasons.
2:06pm Thursday 10th July 2008
Print 
Email this 
Comment
What are these links for?
If you liked this article and would like to share it with others on the web who might be searching for good content we've made it easy for you to do it.
At the bottom of all articles, you'll see links to six sites. These sites - commonly called 'social bookmark' or 'social news' sites - have large communities of web users who share and rate interesting, useful and fun things on the web.
Clicking the links will automatically add the address of the story you are reading to one of these sites, letting you share it with others. Each site will ask you to register to share stories. Registration is free and once a member, you can store, recommend and search for stories that interest you.
More on Digg
More on del.icio.us
More on Furl
More on reddit
More on NowPublic/
More on Yahoo!
