Countryside campaigners give cash boost to Weymouth town green protesters

Dorset's Campaign to Protect Rural England group has thrown its weight behind campaigners fighting to save a green area in Weymouth from development.

The county branch has offered £500 towards the legal expenses incurred by residents determined to preserve the town green at Markham and Little Francis on the outskirts of Weymouth. The CPRE is also encouraging others to help with their campaign costs.

A hearing is due to get underway in the Appeal Court in February when the Society for the Protection of Markham and Little Francis will be seeking to overturn a decision in favour of a company, Betterment Properties, hoping to build homes on the site. The Society claims that the area should be officially registered as a Town Green.

The Society claims that the land is a Town Green which has been enjoyed by local people over many years and should not be developed.

CPRE is backing the case because it believes green spaces in and around towns have an important role for both the community which enjoy them for leisure, and in terms of the importance of such sites in improving the landscape.

"Open spaces are greatly valued by local communities but are seen as little more than an opportunity to make money by many developers - once they are built on they are lost for ever," said CPRE Dorset director, Trevor Bevins.

The Society has been told that it may have to fund its own legal costs for the court appearance - in the region of £20,000.

According to the BBC, the 100 acre site, known as Curtis Fields, was added to the register of town and village greens in 2000.

Betterment Properties bought 46 acres of the site in 2004 and launched a challenge to its protected status.

In November 2010, a High Court judge ruled that Dorset County Council had applied the wrong Act of Parliament when it registered the land as a town green.