Council works to regain ownership of Charterhouse Green

Godalming Town Council is set to take over two patches of land in the town that are currently owned and managed by Waverley Borough Council.

The town's Policy and Management Committee agreed this week to pursue the idea, after Waverley offered to hand the areas over.

One of them is an area of land next to Meadrow Allotments, which the town council says could be used to expand the Meadrow Allotment site, and the other is Charterhouse Green, an area of land bordered by Borough Road, Hell Ditch, Chalk Road and the railway line, which, the council says, has the potential to provide opportunities for improved 'residential amenity'.

Discussing the plan at Thursday night's meeting, town council leader Paul Follows said there were "quite a few" land assets currently owned by Waverley that the town council was interested in taking over, but he warned that councillors needed to be aware of the costs involved in taking them on.

Charterhouse ward councillor Steve Cosser told the meeting: "I am happy in principle with the whole idea. Having spent a lot of time over the years trying to persuade Waverley that we ought to do more with the green, I should be delighted if we took it over, but I do take the point about the costs.

"When I had discussions with Waverley it was quite clear that they were trying to offload some of this land. We shouldn't put ourselves in the position of financial diffculty to help out Waverley."

But Cllr Follows said Waverley was making no charge for the transfers, and taking on the land wouldn't benefit Waverley financially but would allow Godaming to take over the land and use it for the benefit of local residents.

Town clerk Andy Jeffery told councillors the two areas are registered common land and had been owned by Godalming Town Council prior to local government reorganisation in 1974. The maintenance costs could be met within the provisions of next year's budget.

The committee agreed to authorise officers to continue with the negotiations.