Campaigners are pressing to save more open space from housing development in a Norfolk town following a successful push to secure village green protections for local parkland, according to Yahoo News Australia.
Seven acres of land beside the River Great Ouse in King’s Lynn, known as Harding’s Pits, is set to be preserved after the county council granted it village green status, according to Yahoo News Australia. The Harding’s Pits Community Association campaigned for thirty years to keep the area designated as leisure space, as reported by Yahoo News Australia.
Following that success, the group is seeking to extend protection to the east side of the area. Up to 50 houses are earmarked there in the local plan managed by King’s Lynn and West Norfolk Borough Council, according to Yahoo News Australia. The local authority has been approached for comment, according to the same report.
Alexandra Kemp, an independent councillor, said that she is asking her authority to amend its local plan.
“I want to protect the east side of Hardings Way as a village green. To take out the 50 houses earmarked for Harding's Pits east from the borough's local plan, and provide community sports facilities, more trees and places for wildlife instead,” Kemp said.
The local council faces a government target to build more than 10,000 new homes by 2040, according to Yahoo News Australia. Harding’s Pits originated as a nineteenth-century clay pit before serving as landfill and was transformed into a public space in the early 1960s, according to Yahoo News Australia. The location is used for dog walking and provides pedestrian access toward the King’s Lynn town centre, as reported by Yahoo News Australia.
