The local council had acquired land for open space purposes. It subsequently appropriated the land for industrial and employment purposes. But the land continued to be used for recreation. On an application to register the land as a town or village green, the inspector held that it could be inferred from the council’s conduct that it had re-appropriated the land to open space use, alternatively, it had impliedly granted permission for lawful sports and pastimes to be carried out on the land.
Held: The decision was quashed. Under section 163 of the 1933 Act (and now section 122 of the Local Government Act 1972) the local authority must decide whether or not the land is required for the purpose for which it is held, it must carry out what has been described as a conscious deliberative process. Thus the suggestion that an appropriation can be inferred from use alone is problematic.
Dove J said: ‘First, section 122(1) contains no prescribed formula for the procedure to be adopted when a council appropriates land from one purpose to another. It does however need the council to determine that it no longer requires the land for the purpose for which it was holding it up to the point of that appropriation.’
Dove J continued: ‘The difficulty with that suggestion is the need for the authority, when exercising the power under section 122 of the 1972 Act, to be satisfied that the land ‘is no longer required’ for the purpose for which it is held. That requires some conscious deliberative process so as to ensure that the statutory powers under which the land is held is clear and appropriation from one use to another cannot, in my view, be simply inferred from how the council manages or treats the land.’
Judges:
Dove J
Citations:
[2015] EWHC 2576 (Admin)
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Adamson, Regina (on The Application of) v Kirklees Metropolitan Borough Council CA 18-Feb-2020
Appropriation was not in sufficient form
The claimants had challenged an order supporting the decision of the Council to use their allotments for a new primary school, saying that the land had be appropriated as allotment land, and that therefore the consent of the minister was needed.
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Planning, Land, Local Government
Updated: 17 October 2022; Ref: scu.552359