Village Green Update

The new Growth and Infrastructure Act 2013 goes a little way to relieve some of the uncertainty that has existed around applications to register development sites as a village green.

Land may be registered as a village green if it has been used for recreational purposes for the preceding twenty years. Previously applications could also be made up to two years after the recreational use ceased.  The legislators have recognised that the Act has sometimes been used as a tool for frustrating development, even where there is little merit is such applications.

The Act reduces the two year cessasion period to one year. The Act also removes the right to apply to register land as village green where a defined Trigger Event occurs. Although consutlations are ongoing regarding further changes the most significant circumstances that would now comprise a Trigger Event are :-

1) When a planning application is first publicised.

2) When a development plan or neighbourhood plan consulations is drafted;

The right would again become exercisable if the Trigger Event circumstances ceased to apply.