Registering Your Land As A Town Or Village Green - The Risks?

Registration of land as a town or village green ("TVG") represents a significant risk to landowners seeking to develop open land. TVG status sterilises development land, robbing it of its development value.

Given its potential for stopping development, making an application for a TVG is a common tactic of local objectors. Whether or not a TVG is actually registered, the delay arising from the Commons Registration Authority's investigation of the application and decisionmaking may in itself cause the development project to go off.

The law

An application to register a TVG will succeed if the Registration Authority is satisfied that a significant number of local individuals have used the land for lawful sports and past times as of right continuously for at least 20 years. The application must have been made within two years of the claimed use ceasing.

The term "as of right" has a basic meaning in law – that use is without:

the permission of the land owner; use of force; or secrecy or stealth. However, the application of that basic meaning has become complicated in the context of TVG cases.

Could local people be said to be using the land "as of right" where they defer to the use of those permitted by the landowner to use the land? For example, by moving out of the way of golfers.

Is the local use "as of right" where there is no interaction at all between landowner and locals? For example, where a landowner uses the land during business hours but locals use the land in the evenings and weekends only.

The judgement in R (oao Lewis) v Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council & others (Rev 1) [2010] UKSC 11 provides useful general guidance on these points.

Also, specific examples of Inspectors' reports can be downloaded from the websites of Registration Authorities, as a helpful indication of how Inspectors considering the applications for Registration Authorities will deal with the evidence and issues. However, they are in no way binding on subsequent decisions and each case is fact-specific.

For clarity, it is worth noting that an application for registration is entirely separate from the planning process and so planning permission or a planning agreement in place with the local planning authority (usually the District Council) will not prevent the Registration Authority (usually the County Council) from registering the TVG if the application is successful.

Objecting to the application

A landowner faces a significant burden in defeating an...