The Friends of Hurst Park is a group of local people formed as a result of the campaign in summer 2011 to protect Hurst Meadows from development as a cricket pitch and outfield. The Meadows are part of an area known as Molesey Hurst, now called Hurst Park. Following a consultatation overwhelmingly in favour of protecting the wildflowers and grassland area of Hurst Meadows, local people felt there was a need to do more to protect Hurst Park as a whole from any kind of development, restriction, fencing, disposal, sale, leasing, mineral working or change that might affect the open access we have all enjoyed for many years. To this end, working with Elmbridge Borough Council officers and councillors, local people formalised a Friends' group.

MAY 2012
Following a request from Elmbridge Parks Officers for our views on a requestl from East Molesey Cricket Club to hire Little Hurst Meadows for Colts cricket practice on Sundays and possibly during the week, we had 20 responses from our wider Friends on the database. The great majority of these expressed grave doubts, fearing that the club might seek longer standing rights for any area it might wish to hire. We have fed the 30 responses back to the parks officers and await to hear their decision.

HURST PARK is a swathe of about 80 acres of land, including Hurst Meadows and Little Hurst Meadows, lying alongside the River Thames in Elmbridge, Surrey, upstream of Hampton Court Bridge; it is a popular open space and a lovely landscape, which is very well maintained by Elmbridge Borough Council..

PEOPLE in the local community - residents and users of Hurst Park - have been working together on an application to have the entire area put on the Commons Register as a New Village Green, with the objective of getting the strongest safeguards for all ot it . This should best protect in perpetuity the way that the land is enjoyed - by ordinary people for recreation and leisure - whatever its ownership.

THE FRIENDS will be working with Elmbridge Borough Council and others to help care for this lovely Thames-side parkland into the future, for the benefit of all of us who love it. We have initiated an informal 'zero tolerance' approach to litter, with everyone picking litter where they see it, and from time to time carrying out a more thorough litter-pick of areas which look like they could benefit.

Hurst Park has faced several threats in recent times, including:

• proposals to lease off something like five acres for a cricket pitch and outfield for a period of at least thirty years; such a change of ownership could, over the years, bring pressures for fencing, buildings, access restrictions, changes in the management of the ground, and much else that cannot be foreseen
• identification in Surrey County Council's strategic minerals plan as a potential working zone (category 2); this is a rolling programme to ensure that Surrey has a bank of land to meet government targets for supply of minerals (sand and gravel)
• worrying precedents in the disposal and fencing off of parcels of nearby public land, despite objections, to the local boat club for private use as boat storage and development of a rowing tank (permission granted in May 2012)
• likely cumulative impacts from changes that might over time alter the character of the landscape and the way it has been traditionally used by the public.