Strack: Court of Appeal confirms inspector fell into error when he assumed that the public have right to use Town and Village Greens

By majority, the Court of Appeal found an inspector had fallen into legal error regarding the deregistration and exchange of a Town and Village Green. Specifically, the inspector incorrectly held that the public have a right to use Town and Village Green, whilst the strict legal position is that the right to use a Town and Village Green is exclusive to a narrower subset of local inhabitants. The Court held that the inspector fell into error when he conflated the interests of these two groups rather than consider them separately.

The appellant argued that it was improper to off-set the impact on those with a legal right to access the land by considering the interests of others who were trespassers. Nevertheless, the Court held that the statutory scheme under s.16 of the Commons Act 2006 allowed an inspector to consider the interests of other potential users and therefore considered on the facts of this case the error would not have affected the outcome of the decision and consequently refused relief.

The case contains a useful discussion of the nature of the rights of relevant inhabitants as well as the range of factors which may be considered under s.16.

David Holland KC and Joe Thomas acted for the Appellant. They were instructed by Matthew McFeeley of Richard Buxton Solicitors.