‘Village green’ land at risk after ruling by supreme court
I am not making a judgement on this specific case. I do however feel we should never pickle rural communities in aspic and that notions such as “village green” and “greenbelt” need to stay fluid and flexible if we are to re-discover a “living/working” countryside. This story about the reversal of a village green application in Lancaster tells us:
Under the Commons Act 2006, land that has been used for informal recreation for at least 20 years by local people without challenge or permission can be registered as a village green. Once registered, it is protected from development.
Fears that the land might be built upon saw the Moorside Fields Community Group attempt to register the fields as a village green in 2008. The group won its case in the high court and the court of appeal. But the supreme court judgment, by a majority of three to two, has reversed the earlier decisions.
“This is a deeply worrying decision as it puts at risk countless publicly owned green spaces which local people have long enjoyed, but which, unknown to them, are held for purposes which are incompatible with recreational use,” said Nicola Hodgson, case officer for the Open Spaces Society, which campaigns for the protection of town and village greens. “We urgently need a change in the law to ensure our precious green spaces are protected.”
The county council, which owns the land, had objected on the grounds that the fields might be needed for the expansion of the local school. Some parents feared such a move would open up the school playing fields to the wider public, something that constituted a threat to pupil safety. Handing down its judgment in favour of the council, the court also quashed a separate attempt to grant three hectares of a wood in Surrey, owned by the NHS, village green status.
The ruling is a major setback for open space campaigners who have enjoyed mixed fortunes down the years. A House of Lords decision in 1999, approving the right of the village of Sunningwell in Oxfordshire to register a strip of land as a village green, saw similar applications mushroom across the country.
But the introduction of the Growth and Infrastructure Act in 2013 stipulated that land which had been subject to planning applications could not be granted village green status, staunching the flow of further registrations.
“This ruling reflects what’s going on at a broader level in our society,” Bebbington (local campaigner) said. “Every bit of green space has to be available for development because suddenly land is gold, especially to local authorities that don’t have any money. These spaces are community assets that help to keep us healthy and they are very important. They connect communities but they are taking them away from us.”