The Court of Appeal has ruled in the first case to test town and village green (TVG) rules dating from 2013 that introduced “trigger events” which can block the registration of a TVG.
The court unanimously upheld a High Court ruling that quashed the registration of land at Royal Wootton Bassett in Wiltshire as a TVG, on the basis that the site was included in a development plan which identified the land for potential development – one of the trigger events inserted into the Commons Act 2006 by the Growth and Infrastructure Act 2013.
The court heard that local residents had mistakenly thought it was council land until the owner, Cooper Estates Strategic Land, gated and bolted it in 2015.
Residents applied to Wiltshire Council to register it as a TVG, which the authority did in 2017. However, the owner applied to have this quashed, citing the trigger event rules.
Cooper Estates argued that, as the proposed TVG is within the boundaries of the local development plan, there should be a presumption in favour of development, and the village green designation should be quashed.
In a ruling last July, High Court deputy judge David Elvin QC agreed, and quashed the designation.
Upholding that ruling today, Lord Justice Lewison said that the mere fact that land is included within a settlement boundary is not enough to suspend the right to apply to register a TVG, with the key question being whether the development plan document identifies the land “for potential development”.
But he added: “In the present case the development plan document does show that the land is identified for potential development.”
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