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Stronger Village Green Law Will Hinder Development Opportunities- 24/03/2010
Preventing development of land in small towns and villages areas has become easier as result of a landmark Supreme Court decision which revises the principle for the registration of new town or village greens, warns a leading Midlands’ planning lawyer.
Solicitor-Advocate Niall Blackie, Partner and Head of Planning at Midlands’ law firm FBC Manby Bowdler LLP, says that latest Supreme Court judgement means that landowners who want to safeguard their future ability to develop their land should ensure that local people are excluded from the land in order to forestall its registration as a new town or village green.
“Applications to register new town or village greens can be used as a way to try to prevent development of land,” says Mr Blackie, who is based in FBC Manby Bowdler’s Telford office.
“However, many attempts to do this have been overturned previously by the councils and the courts on the principle that land cannot be registered as a new green where it has been used both by the landowner for his own purposes, and by local people for recreation in circumstances where the local people deferred to the landowner’s use, for example by something as simple as allowing a farmer to take and dry a hay crop, or by giving way when a school is using its fields for cricket or hockey.”
In the case on which the Supreme Court ruled, local people often went on to a golf course in Redcar in North Yorkshire, but they did not interfere with the golfers’ play, giving way to a shout of "fore".
Mr Blackie says: “Although local people had been using this area of land for the past 20 years, the council and the lower courts had found that their deference to the golfers was sufficient to reject the village green application. However, the Supreme Court disagreed and allowed the registration, saying that the local people were asserting a right to use the land by being there for their own recreation, thus preventing Persimmon Homes from going ahead with a major commercial development.
“Village green law has always been complex, and developers have increasingly found that a development can be held up for months while a claim that a piece of land might have been used for general recreation is considered, and, frequently those claims prevent the development altogether. All that the local community have to show is that they have openly used the land for recreation for 20 years, without force or permission.
“The concept of deference had been a useful balance between landowners and public, enabling a landowner to turn a blind eye to some low level use, where the people gave way to him when he wanted to use his land.
“The implications of this latest judgment for all landowners, private and public, are considerable. They should seek legal advice if they suspect that their land is being used by local people and be much more vigilant to prevent unauthorised access since this could affect their future development ability.”
Mr Blackie is an expert on village green law and has acted for landowners on a number of village green claims across the Midlands in the past 15 years.