GREENHAM residents with commoners' rights could lawfully rip down a work of modern art to be built at New Greenham Park, the head of the commission charged with conserving the common has claimed.
A 30-metre-long origami aeroplane made from a sheet of steel is set to be built next to the entrance roundabout on the A339.
The trust that owns the park has long promoted modern sculpture and commissioned the piece to improve the entrance to the business park from the main road.
“Changes”, by Icelandic sculptor Gundrun Nielsen is supposed to represent “the folding and unfolding of the past”, reflecting the history of the airbase.
However, residents have labelled it ugly and obscure, with one critic labelling it “a load of tin cans.”
West Berkshire Council planning officers granted permission for the sculpture, saying that Greenham Common Trust representatives had told them the land was not on common land, but was owned by the park.
But Chris Austin, who chairs the Greenham and Crookham Commons Commission, which has stewardship of the common, has said that the land's ownership is irrelevant to commoners' rights.
Speaking at a recent Greenham Parish Council meeting, he said: “Any commoner would be totally within their rights to rip it down and take it away, and there is nothing anybody could do about it.
“The park did buy that land from West Berkshire Council, but it doesn't mean that it isn't still common land.”
Fellow parish councillor Allan Beal added: “It strikes me that this is yet another inept piece of work by West Berkshire Council and their planning department.”
However, Stuart Tagg, chief executive of the Greenham Common Trust, said that he was fairly confident that it was no longer an area of the common.
He said: “As far as we know, it got left out of the area in the 1999 Act. We are reasonably confident that it's not an area of the common.”
The statue is due to be unveiled next year.