Burrows (on behalf of Wraysbury Action Group), R (on the application of) v The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead & Anor
2014
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
UK
CORAM
- MR JUSTICE FOSKETT
Areas of Law
- Administrative Law
- Property and Real Estate Law
2014
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
UK
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The legal dispute involves a judicial review of the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead's decision to decline registering Thamesfield as a town or village green. The application hinged on the interpretation of section 15 of the Commons Act 2006, specifically whether the public's use of the land was 'as of right'. The case delved into whether signage erected in 2007 sufficiently prohibited use, making it contentious. The Inspector and MR JUSTICE FOSKETT upheld that the signage effectively communicated opposition to public use, thus rendering such use contentious and not 'as of right'. Consequently, the court refused the application for judicial review.
Judgment
MR JUSTICE FOSKETT:
This matter came before me on 14 February as a renewed application for permission to apply for judicial review, permission having been refused on the papers by Lewis J on 27 September 2013. After oral argument lasting for about two hours I decided to reflect on the papers further having had the benefit of those arguments and to put my ruling in writing.
The application relates to the decision of the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead (“the Local Authority”) made on 4 June 2013 to decline to register land known as Thamesfield in Wraysbury as a town or village green (“TVG”) pursuant to section 15 of the Commons Act 2006 .
The issues that were joined between the Claimant, on the one hand, and the owners of the land in question (referred to as ‘WESL’), on the other, were subjected to the usual process in this context, namely, their investigation by an Inspector appointed by the local authority to conduct a non-statutory public inquiry and then to provide a report to the local authority. The Inspector appointed in this case was Mr Vivian Chapman QC, a well known and highly regarded practitioner in this particular field, who has acted in many inquiries of this nature. He held an inquiry lasting some nine days and received evidence from over 180 witnesses. His report dated 25 February 2013 ran to 91 pages and to 337 paragraphs. He supplemented that report by two additional reports. He encapsulated his conclusion conveniently in an Executive Summary on the first page of his main report which reads as follows:
“This report concludes that although Thamesfield has been used for lawful sports and pastimes by significant number of the local people for more than twenty years, such use became contentious and ceased to be use “as of right” in July 2007 and that the application fails because it was not made within two years of that cessation.”
To put that conclusion into context, it should be noted that the application to register the land as a TVG was made on 11 March 2010. Section 15(3) of the 2006 Act effectively provides that if the user “as of right” had ceased before the commencement of the two-year period prior to the application being made, registration as a TVG could not take place. It follows that if the user “as of right” ceased in July 2007, the application was made outside the two-year period of “grace” provided for by section 15(3) .
Since the local authority accepted the Inspector’s conclusions with no modification, i