Town and village greens are the essence of rural England and Wales. Owslebury has a registered village green (VG80). According to the Parish Council, in 1906 the owner of Longwood gave the green to the village for cricket. The same year a football club was established, and £80 was spent on building the pavilion, which was completed in 1908.It was formally registered in the 1 October 1970.Story-book images of village greens tend to be of an expanse of grass in the centre of a village complete with oak tree and seat, or a carefully-manicured recreation ground just outside the village, where cricket is played in the lengthening shadows of a summer evening, and the villagers dance round the maypole.Registered Village Greens are afforded significant legal protection against development that would prevent locals from using the Village Green and playing lawful sports.Please see Defra's guidance on Village Greens.

The drawings are artistic impressions and not drawn to scale which makes it difficult to imagine all of the planned items fitting into what is a relatively small site. As there is no planning design statement as part of the pre planning application, we think there's a number of aspects which will require the parish council to involve legal representation in terms of:Harm done > a yew tree has already been chopped down, which could be considered harmfulThe site will be hedged off along Longwood Road, which could result in lose of access for those crossing the green, with the post box in the corner not accessibleIt's unclear whether the playing pitches will be fenced off, or if in constant use, how villagers will be able to access the green.