CAMPAIGNERS battling to protect village greens are celebrating a new law which could have helped save common land in Hampshire.

A legal battle still surrounds the future of Stroud Green, on the north-eastern edge of Totton, where residents of the town are trying to stave off the loss of more green space to development.

A bid to register Eastleigh recreation ground as common land was rejected last year, while a ruling is still awaited by Hampshire County Council on Mengham Park at Hayling Island.

The crucial clause, which will make it easier for people to register land as a new green and rescue it from development, is included in the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, which will come into effect at the beginning of February. Its successful passage through parliament follows a lot of campaigning by the Open Spaces Society.

The society's case officer Nicola Hodgson welcomed the impending arrival of the new law and said: "People can apply to register land as a green if they have used it for informal recreation for 20 years. However, if those using the green have not come from a defined area - called a locality in the old legislation - the registration authority, which could be a county or unitary council, may reject the application.

"As towns expand, it is very difficult to define the locality from which users of an open space have come. The new law alters the legal definition of a green so that, provided some people come from that area, the land can be registered."