|
Despite claims of community ownership, workmen have moved into action this week to upgrade Lamlash Recreation Field for North Ayrshire Council.
Local residents and members of the village hall committee claim that the village owns the field but NAC deny this claim. The field will be a sports field for the new high school.
A council spokesman said this week: ‘The Council is owner of the hall and recreation field and these are not owned by the community or held in trust for them.
‘On October 10, 1974 the trustees of Lamlash Public Hall granted title of the site to Bute County Council; there were no restrictions and full ownership was transferred.’
Hall secretary and treasurer Maureen Smith said: ‘The field and community centre were both administered by the local trustees for many years until the early 1970s when it became difficult to maintain them. There were conditions attached to the transfer but Bute never signed them. The trustees may have acted wrongly when they gave the field away.’
One of the conditions of transfer said: ‘All ground shall be used solely for the purpose of a public recreation ground or pleasure garden and be laid out as shrubbery, garden, grass or walks and kept constantly in good order.’
The spokesman said: ‘Bute County Council gave an undertaking in 1974 to use the land for physical and mental training and recreation and social, moral and intellectual development through the medium of reading and recreation rooms, library, lectures, classes, recreation or otherwise.’
Local councillor Margie Currie said: ‘It is my understanding that the field passed from the ownership of Bute council to Cunninghame and then NAC. I would be extremely surprised if the council would change the use of the land.’
Jim Tulips, PPP project team leader at NAC said: ‘The work will take one week and the pitch then has to be protected for 10 to 11 weeks. This inevitably means a period of inconvenience for school and community use.’
Contractors Fairways Sportsgrounds of Renfrew started work on Monday and a company spokesman said: ‘We are top dressing with sand and fertiliser and will be spiking the surface later. If it was to be properly drained it would be out of action for a year.’
