Appeal against rejection of request for registration of land as a common: ‘At the heart of the appeal lies the question of law whether it is possible to acquire a right of common by virtue of an express grant or (as in the present case) user after 2 January 1970 over land registered under the Commons Registration Act 1965 on or before 31 July 1970.’
Held: The appeal failed (Sir Terence Etherton C dissenting). Section 1(2)(a) of the 1965 Act operated to ensure that if land might have been registered under the 1965 Act but had not been, then on 31 July 1970 it ceased to be common land, or a town or village green, and it could no longer be asserted that even though it was not ‘deemed’ to be common land, in fact it was. Registration was conclusive evidence that the land was common land, and non-registration was conclusive evidence that it was not.
Sir Terence Etherton C, Tomlinson, Lewison LJJ
[2016] EWCA Civ 446, [2016] WLR(D) 242
Bailii, WLRD
Commons Act 2006, Commons Registration Act 1965
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal from – Littlejohns, Regina (on The Application of) v Devon County Council and Another Admn 24-Mar-2015
The claimants sought judicial review of the refusal by the defendants to register rights of common in certain lands under the 2006 Act. The defendants said that the rights asserted did not fall within the scope of transitional provisions in the 2006 . .
Cited – Central Electricity Generating Board v Clwyd County Council 1976
The owner of a farm applied late for the registration of a right of common over the Dee Marsh Saltings which had been provisionally registered as common land. After an inquiry the Commons Commissioner, Hugh Francis QC, confirmed the registration of . .
Cited – Corpus Christi College Oxford v Gloucestershire County Council CA 1983
The court considered the result where the freehold of what had formerly been waste of the manor became severed from the lordship.
Held: It ceased to be part of the manor. Lord Denning MR described the historical basis of the ownership of land . .
Cited – Hampshire County Council v Milburn HL 1991
The 1965 Act ‘was passed to give effect to the recommendations of the Royal Commission so far as registration was concerned. The Act of 1965 did not confer any general public right of access over common land and did not set up the machinery for the . .
Cited – Bakewell Management Limited v Brandwood and others HL 1-Apr-2004
Houses were built next to a common. Over many years the owners had driven over the common. The landowners appealed a decision that they could not acquire a right of way by prescription over the common because such use had been unlawful as a criminal . .
Cited – Oxfordshire County Council v Oxford City Council and others HL 24-May-2006
Application had been made to register as a town or village green an area of land which was largely a boggy marsh. The local authority resisted the application wanting to use the land instead for housing. It then rejected advice it received from a . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Land
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.563142
