RESIDENTS have vowed to fight to prevent a historic cricket club from being forced to leave their ground.

Supporters of Stacksteads Cricket Club are planning to apply for village green status for Waterbarn Recreation Ground to stop the club from having to find a new home.

Around 100 villagers attended a meeting at Waterbarn Recreation Ground on Tuesday where the Friends of Waterbarn Village Green was formed.

They will co-ordinate the village green bid to Lancashire County Council for the ground, which would prevent any development.

This comes after new owner of the site, Jonathon Webster, told Stacksteads Cricket Club it must leave the ground at the end of the season as he plans to turn it into a community sports facility, combining a number of activities for youngsters, including cricket.

Kevin Edmondson, of Brandwood Road, one of the eight members of the friends group, said they were hoping to get the application submitted in the next few weeks and had at least 20 people who had agreed to fill in the necessary forums, providing evidence of how they and others use the ground.

Mr Edmondson said: "We have to prove that we have used it without permission for 20 years but people have used it for more than 100 years.

"We also have to send in pictures and maps of the area that we want to be recognised as the village green."

The residents are hoping to use the Trap Grounds case, Oxford, as a legal precedent, to help their application.

In this case council plans to develop land used for walking and wildlife watching were thwarted by residents who applied for village green status.

Mr Webster bought the site from the Waterbarn Baptist Church, which he also owns and plans to turn into a facility for music.

A cricket club has played at Waterbarn for 104 years but Mr Webster said he was cancelling the club's licence to use the ground as it had failed to meet the terms of the agreement by making late payments and failing in the upkeep of the clubhouse and bowling green.

Mr Webster said he was willing to pay for the club to set up in another location of a similar standard.