Agenda and minutes

The Committee membership varied from that shown on the agenda by the inclusion of Mr H R Craske and Mr R J Lees instead of Mr A D Crowther and Mr T Gates.

(1)       Correspondence dated 19 March 2012 from Mr David Pegg, the applicant was tabled at the meeting.  The Chairman agreed to accept this document.

(2)       The Principal Case Officer set out the history of the application under discussion.  This had originally come forward in 2001 and had been objected to by the Booth and Baldwin Charity (the landowners).  Following a non statutory Public Inquiry, a Panel had registered all the land except the tennis courts on 20 May 2004.

(3)       The decision to register was challenged in the High Court by the Treasury Solicitors (acting on behalf of the landowner which was a registered charity.) In the light of case law in force at that time, the County Council had accepted that the cricket field and tennis courts parts of the land were not capable of registration, whereas the situation was less clear in respect of the children’s playground and the rough areas of grass around the cricket field. 

(4)       On 24 January 2006, a High Court Order was made requiring the deletion of the land from the County Council’s register.  It was also agreed that the possible registration of the playground and the rough areas (Areas C and D) should be remitted to the County Council for reconsideration.  This would initially take the form of a further non statutory Public Inquiry.

(5)       The Principal Case Officer referred to the subsequent High Court decisions in respect of the Betterment and High Peak cases.  These cast doubt on whether the High Court had the ability to remit the case back to the County Council.

(6)       As a result of the two judgements, the Inspector for the non-statutory Public Inquiry advised the County Council that it should not proceed and recommended that advice on the implications of these judgements should be sought from Counsel. 

(7)       The County Council had asked the applicant and the landowner for their views.  The applicant had considered that an application should be made for the Order to be set aside and that the Village Green registration should remain as it was prior to the Order.  The Landowner considered that it would not be appropriate to set the Order aside.  The County Council then sought advice from Counsel.

(8)       The Principal Case Officer then set out the three options that had been considered by Counsel.  The first of these (Option 1) was to arrange for a non-statutory Public Inquiry to reconsider the application for Areas C and D.  Counsel’s advice to the County Council was that in the light of the Betterment and High Peak judgements, it was unlikely that the County Council actually had the power to do so.  In addition, the Order itself only required the deletion of the registration.  The reconsideration of parts of the application was a private arrangement between the parties which did not form part of the Order.

(9)       The second possible option (Option 2) considered by Counsel was for the County County to apply to the High Court to set  ...  view the full minutes text for item 2.