RESIDENTS in a village near York are due to discover whether a patch of land near their homes can be turned into a public green.

North Yorkshire County Council will tomorrow consider an application to register an area in Tockwith known as the Hammerton Mill Sandbeds as common land.

Planning officers at the authority have recommended that the move, made by Tockwith with Wilstrop Parish Council, should be refused after saying there were “no realistic grounds” on which it could be granted and staging a public inquiry would be “an unnecessary use of resources”.

A report by the authority’s corporate director for business and environmental services, David Bowe, which will go before a meeting of its planning and regulatory functions sub-committee, said an original application regarding the Sandbeds being used as common land was made in 2003 and was also recommended for refusal.

A subsequent decision was then put on hold pending the outcome of a separate case in the House of Lords.

But council officers said the Tockwith application had not made it clear which “locality or neighbourhood” would benefit from the land, next to the River Nidd, becoming a village green.

Mr Bowe’s report said: “The land is said to have become common land through use by local residents for recreation and enjoyment.

“The application further stated the land has been left in its natural state until some four years ago or thereabouts.”

He said letters submitted to the council “speak of childhoods spent swimming, fishing, picnicking and sunbathing” on the 0.65-hectare patch of land without licences or payment being needed, and that this was “a tradition which had continued for a century or more”.

But the report said these activities would not be enough to support classifying the Sandbeds as common land.

Officers also felt there was “inconclusive” evidence over whether the land met the criteria for village green status, saying it was “unclear whether any use has been as of right, rather than forceful or with permission”.