Redcar - village green registrations

Last week saw another victory for local residents against developers in the Battle of the Village Greens. In R (on the application of Lewis) v Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council [2010] UKSC 11, the Supreme Court unanimously held that alleged "deference" by dog-walking, bird-watching local residents to the playing of golf on disputed land, had not prevented the residents' use of the disputed land from amounting to an “as of right” use. Lord Walker said: “It is not as if the residents took to their heels and vacated the land whenever they saw a golfer. They simply acted … with courtesy and common sense. But courteous and sensible though they were (with occasional exceptions) the fact remains that they were regularly, in large numbers, crossing the fairways as well as walking on the rough... A reasonably alert owner of the land could not have failed to recognise that this user was the assertion of a right and would mature into an established right unless the owner took action to stop it.” Hence, the land was registrable as a village green.

Lord Walker referred to the “village green industry”. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is aware of the use of village green applications. At the end of last year, Defra provided details of a final report on research conducted into the registration of new town or village greens. The research, which was conducted by the Countryside and Community Research Institute, found that nearly half of applications for registrations of greens were linked to prospective development. As a result of this research, Defra states that it proposes consulting in the Spring of 2010 on whether there is a need for reform of the registration system, and the options for reform that exist. We might therefore anticipate changes to the law in the near future.