The appeal in TALLINGTON LAKES LTD v SOUTH KESTEVEN DC (2024) EWCA Civ 811 concerned the proper interpretation and application of the CARAVAN SITES AND CONTROL OF DEVELOPMENTS ACT 1960 (the 1960 Act). The issue was as to the payment of an annual site licence fee.

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In UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM v PERSONS UNKNOWN (2024) EWHC 1529 (KB) the Claimant is granted possession of part of its land that is being used as a protest camp. The order is to prevent persons unknown from entering and using the land. Acts of vandalism and intimidation had occurred there. Once a protest turned into a base account for criminal activity any licence to enter and use the land ceased to apply; para 51.

In R ( WILKINSON ) v ENFIELD LBC ( 2024 ) EWHC 1193 ( Admin ) it is held that the Council was entitled, under Section 123 of the Local Government Act 1972 ( LGA 1972 ), to grant a 25 year lease of part of a park in its area to a professional football club, and to do so freed from a trust for enjoyment by the public under Section 164 of the Public Health Act 1875 ( the1875 Act ). The Council had a wide power under Section 123 of LGA 1972. However, for land forming part of an open space it had to fulfil the requirements of Section 123 ( 2A ) before it could lawfully dispose of such land under Section 123 ( 1 ). Conversely, having fulfilled those requirements, it could, as a result of Section 123 ( 2 B ), dispose of such land freed from any trust arising solely by virtue of the land being held in trust for the enjoyment of the public under Section 164 of the 1875 Act.

In addition to the provisions of the Public Health Act 1875, the Open Spaces Act 1906 and the Local Government Act 1972 on acquisition, appropriation and disposal of land, and statutory trusts for the public enjoyment of open space, there is, applicable to London Borough Councils and parks and open spaces, the Ministry of Housing and Local Government Provisional Order Confirmation ( Greater London Parks and Open Spaces ) Act 1967. These provisions are considered in R ( WILKINSON ) v ENFIELD LBC ( 2024 ) EWHC 1193 (  Admin ), where a judicial review challenge to an agreement between the Council and Tottenham Hotspur Football Club to grant a lease for a sports academy is dismissed.

In R ( STRACK ) v SoS ( 2024 ) EWCA Civ 420 the issue was whether an Inspector determining an application to deregister part of a Village Green and exchange adjacent land under section 16 of The Commons Act 2006 fell into error by wrongly conflating ( 1) the rights of those with legal rights of recreation over the Village Green with ( 2 ) the interests of those local inhabitants who had no such rights.  It was found that the Inspector had not erred. Both those rights and those interests were relevant considerations to which regard must be had. The weight given to each of these interests is a matter of judgment for the decision-maker in each case.

COTHAM SCHOOL v BRISTOL CITY COUNCIL (2024 ) EWHC 154 ( Ch ) concerned a claim under  the Commons Registration Act 1965 foe an amendment of the Commons Register. The Court ruled that a local authority could not appear on the Court Record as two separate defendants, (1) in its capacity as Commons Registration Authority, and (2 ) as landowner. The Court also ruled that a claim by an Academy School for an entry on the Commons Register to be reversed was not an Aarhus Convention claim for the purposes of costs.

In R (Cilldara Group Holdings Ltd) v West Northamptonshire Council (2023) EWHC 1675 (Admin) the challenge by Cilldara to the Council’s discharge of its statutory duty on a land disposal generally to obtain best consideration reasonably obtainable under Section 123 of the Local Government Act 1972 (LGA 1972) failed before Steyn J, notwithstanding that Cilldara’s ultimate offer was nearly £1 million higher than the offer that was accepted from CDNL. There was a risk that Cilldara’s offer was not reliable. It was too generous to be credible. The apparent lack of attention on Cilldara’s part to the detail of the highly complex tenure of the land, the apparent failure to take any steps to investigate the ground conditions to assess the remediation required for a former landfill site, and the lack of information regarding how Cilldara intended to develop and extract value from the site, combined to give the Council rational grounds for considering that there was a high risk Cilldara was not seriously considering purchasing the land, but rather was seeking to disrupt the process to avoid CDNL doing so. The Council’s assessment that it had grounds to have much higher confidence that CDNL’s final offer was reliable and would proceed to completion, albeit that too was uncertain, was also reasonable, given CDNL’s and a Football Club’s existing interests in the Land, and CDNL’s approach to the offer process. It followed that the Council was reasonably entitled to take the view that Cilldara’s offer was not reasonably obtainable, and that CDNL’s fourth offer, which itself far exceeded the Council’s Red Book Valuation, represented the best consideration reasonably available. The Council had complied with Section 123(2) of LGA 1972.

In RUSHMER v CENTRAL BEDFORDSHIRE COUNCIL (2023) EWHC 1341 (Ch) the Council was responsible, under the Commons Registration Act 1965 ( the 1965 Act ), for maintaining a Common Land Register for its area. The High Court made declarations as to the reliability of a photocopy Register entry and which map was the one adopted for the Register. The Court did not have power to correct or clarify the Register, but it did have power, outside administrative law processes, to identify the Register and restore to the public record the true decision that the commons registration authority had made. This was in order to provide certainty and was not prevented by Section 10 of the 1965 Act.

Section 77 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 enables a local authority to give a Direction that persons and any others with them leave land remove a vehicle or vehicles and any other property they have with them on the land if “ it appears “ to the authority that persons are fir the time being residing in a vehicle or vehicles within that authority’s area on any land forming part of a highway, on any other unoccupied land, or on any occupied land without the consent of the occupier. In R ( SO ) v THANET DISTRICT COUNCIL ( 2023) EWCA Civ 398 the Court of Appeal hold, at para 34, that the necessary state of affairs must exist at the time when the decision is taken to give the Direction. That is the point at which the authority decides what appears to it to be the case.

R (STRACK) v SOS (2023) EWHC 655 (Admin) concerned an application for de-registration of a village green under the Commons Act 2006 and the scope of “neighbourhood” for the purposes of de-registration. Section 16(1) sets out the factors to be considered on such an application. One of those factors is “the interests of the neighbourhood”. The Court holds that the use of that word in Section 16 is different from its use in Section 15. A neighbourhood for the purpose of the former is broader than a “neighbourhood” within a locality for the purposes of the latter. When considering a de-registration application, “neighbourhood” is to be taken as referring to “local inhabitants”, without recourse to the history of the original registration.