Out-Law / Your Daily Need-To-Know

Government consults to tighten protection from town and village green applications

09 Jul 2013, 2:18 pm

Land which is subject to certain statutory development orders or identified for potential development in draft local plan policies will be protected from applications for registration as a town or village green (TVG) under proposals (25-page / 207KB PDF) published by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG).

The Growth and Infrastructure Act 2013 introduced provisions which end the right to make a TVG application in respect of land which is subject to a planning application or subject to an application for a Development Consent Order and in respect of land identified in local and neighbourhood plans, including draft plans.

The DCLG has now launched a consultation on proposals for an order to extend the protection scheme to include land subject to a Local Development Order (LDO); a Neighbourhood Development Order (NDO) or a Transport and Works Act Order (TWAO).

The consultation sets out details of proposed trigger events for when the right to make a TVG application ceases and terminating events for when the right becomes exercisable again.

Under the proposals, the trigger event for a LDO would be when the draft Order is first published for consultation. The terminating event would be either when the draft is withdrawn; when the order is adopted or two years after the draft is published for consultation. Similar trigger and terminating events are proposed to apply to NDOs.

For TWAOs, the DCLG has proposed that the trigger event should be publication of a notice that application for an order has been made.

The terminating events would be either when the request for a direction for deemed planning permission is withdrawn; when it is refused and all means of challenging the refusal in legal proceedings in the United Kingdom are exhausted; or when it is given but the development has not begun within a prescribed period.

The consultation document also has proposals to extend the terminating events for the existing protection for land identified in local and neighbourhood plans. Currently, the trigger event for such land is when the draft plan is published for consultation and the terminating event is when there is no longer a development proposal, including where the plan is withdrawn.

However, the DCLG said that certain situations could arise in the plan making process where the exclusion would fail to lift even if there was no longer a development proposal. It has therefore proposed to introduce a 'catch-all' terminating event, which would occur two years after a draft plan is published for consultation.

The consultation will be open for comments until 19 August.