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- Sep 28, 1999
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It's usually about money. I'm wondering if there long-term plan is to remove common rights so that it becomes private land. That opens the door to the possibility of selling part, or even all of the land for development... You might want to look into the legal structure of the golf course and find out who would benefit from such a windfall. Even if that's not true, it would make a very nice "Fake News" story of your own, to counter theirs!
They cannot remove the common rights because its built into the contract. They tried to sell the golf club car park area, which has beautiful views of the South Downs. You can see for miles. It was for a care home and they had a deal for £1.5M to sell the land. But the sale was refused. The rules state that if you try to sell common land, it has to be replaced by an area of equal size with equal qualities. But they tried it on with a boggy bit of land with no views. So the authorities said they cannot do that deal.
The local golf club is a stain on Crowborough! The bad attitude towards the public is terrible. Numerous disingenuous attempts to try to change the Commons status and to fool the public that they have to walk on the public footpaths.
Let us be clear about this. It is a commons first, golf course second. It was a public common before. They built a golf course on the common. It remains a common.