Is it possible? Yes it is Unless somebody gets it registered...
Under the 2006/7 Land Registration Act all Village Greens and public amenity areas must be registered and allocated a title to protect any existing rights and covenants.....Beware of land snatchers...

Town: Stubshie

From the Ashton Heath Restoration Project website:

"Ashton Heath was registered as common land on the 1st October 1970. The heath is regulated by a "Scheme Of Management" made by the Ashton-In-Makerfield Urban District Council and confirmed by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries on the 16th December 1903."

- David -

I knew you had a good answer David but having some fish on there was a brilliant idea....pity it didn`t work on the Two Stubshaws....

Town: Stubshie

David. Can you tell me if Wigan Metro do any maintenance on the Heath,such as grass cutting etc.?

Town: Stubshie

Hi Ray -

The Council didn't when the Residents' Group first started, but we have come to an agreement to have the main sections mown as part of the management plan for the heath.

Now it is mown it is being used much more by local children for football, kite-flying, and just general play. If we can only persuade the dog owners who allow their pets to foul the grass to pick up after them, it would be an ideal place for the children.

- David -

Thanks David, I wish Wigan Metro had the same consideration for StubshawCross.. The old Ashton UDC built a wall and toilet round our little garden at the site of the Stubshaw Cross and maintained it until 1974 but the Legal Department saythey can`t find any lease to prove responsibility so it never got handed over and we are having a heck of a job getting the project started.
Nigel Ash is doing his bit in getting a clean-up started but we want so much more than that...Ray

Town: Stubshie

Apparently the Metro designates land for which it has responsibility into at least two categories: active and non-active open space. I presume that the former covers parks and woodland patrolled by the ranger service whilst the latter covers the far larger area of Wigan which is green space, but not actively managed.

Ashton Heath falls into this category, and wasn't managed regularly until the local residents became involved.

In the case of the land you cite I would think it will be difficult to make progress if the ownership doesn't lie with the Council. I understood that approaches were being made to Lord Gerard's agent to determine if some agreement could be reached regarding management?

- David -

To the conservators of Ashton Heath,

I am a native of Ashton, born in Greenfields Crescent in 1971, to parents native to Haydock. As a child I played on Ashton Heath and recount many wonderful memories of the undulating, grassy heath, boundaried by the race course railway and the farm that was winter home to Blackpool donkeys.

Looking at your website for the first time since leaving my home town, I have been greatly impressed by the development that has taken place since the early eighties (when Ashton was just beginning to be resurrected from war damage and the decline of the coal mining period). It is a vastly different place to that of my childhood; one, I hope, that is vastly better.

Please keep up your labours to keep Ashton Heath the public ground that it has always been, not for my sentimentality, but for the people of Ashton who will value it for many years to come.

Best wishes,

Mark Briscoe

ps. does the old bridge still exist across the railway from the Heath to the racecourse?
Answers: mbriscoe@ripon-cuddesdon.ac.uk

Town: Cuddesdon, Oxford

Hi Mark -

Thanks for your appreciation of the work done on the Heath. You'll be pleased to know that the farm still serves as a winter home for the Blackpool donkeys.

Part of the old bridge is still there, but all except one side was removed as being unsafe, and of course the railway line disappeared a long time ago.

- David -