By Phil Moody
Despite the various recent suggestions to the contrary I like the game of cricket and always have done – playing it, watching it live or on television, listening to radio commentaries, or just talking about it. That’s why it was no problem to me to move in to a house next to a cricket ground, and why I was pleased to join The Lee Cricket Club as a vice-president in 2003. It is also why for the first four seasons I allowed the fielders unrestricted access to my property to recover balls, accepted the occasional damage with equanimity, and why I offered my services as honorary auditor when the Club was looking for one at the 2004 AGM. I still have a letter from the Chairman of the day accepting my offer, and thanking me for my “very kind” donation and all my support of the Club. It is also why I was happy to see their success and never complained about any aspect whatsoever of the Club’s activities.
But when the Club acquired its new nets, double the size of the old ones, and indicated that it wished to locate them just 15 metres from my house, I did what any householder would do when faced with such an intrusive development. I told them I would prefer them not to do it and suggested that they should position the new nets on the site of the old ones by the pavilion. The Club went ahead with its plans regardless, without further reference to me. Nevertheless, I was still minded to compromise and when John Humphreys told me that the nets would only be used twice per week and the Club would put that in writing to me, I was content.
Unfortunately the Club Committee would not accept this compromise. In the words of Jon Swain, when he communicated their position to me, “the nets are an asset of the Club and we want to be able to use them whenever we want.” The rest is history. The Club’s members have paid dearly for the decisions of their Committee, not just in refusing the compromise, but in allowing their contractor, following a two-week hiatus after I advised him on day one of construction that planning permission was required, to complete the development.
The Council rejected the planning application, following the recommendation of the Case Officer, not because others and I objected, but because the nets were too close to my house. The Inspector rejected the appeal for the same reason (see his report on www.pcs.planningportal.gov.uk/pcsportal/casesearch.asp case reference APP/X0415/A/07/2045909). They have upheld the planning criteria of the Local Plan which are there to protect all of us, and which help to keep this village what it is. They should be applauded by anyone who believes in protecting the rights of the individual.
It is very hard to understand why the President of the Club has not long ago stepped forward with the obvious solution to this problem – conditionally exchange the few square yards where the nets were illegally erected for a few square yards to the east of where the old single net was, dependent on a successful planning application to put the nets there. The second sentence of my quote to the Examiner (which they chose not to print) included my promise to lend my full support to any application to re-erect the nets in that location. Such positioning would be by far the best solution for all because the Club’s desire for unrestricted use could be satisfied without having to worry about nearby residences.