Rutland County Council’s independent review finds village green application for Ryhall should be refused

An independent review has recommended that a parish council’s bid to turn a field into a village green is rejected.

Last year Ryhall Parish Council put in the request to the county council to legally turn a field near Ryhall Meadow into a communal space under the Commons Act.

The act gives the county council as the Commons Registration Authority the power to register land as a village green, where an application is made that can show that a ‘a significant number of the inhabitants of any locality, or of any neighbourhood within a locality, have indulged as of right in lawful sports and pastimes on the land for a period of at least 20 years’.

At the time the parish council didn't know who owned the land, which had been used for several decades by villagers as a common space for exercise and leisure.

During a public consultation the owner was revealed as a Mr Robinson and who proved the land had been part of a Defra environmental stewardship scheme between 2006 to 2016. Council officers agreed with the landowner that he had granted permission for the villagers to use the land and therefore the 20 year ‘as of right’ use could not be evidenced.

After an extensive debate by the council’s planning committee in February, the authority decided that because the matter was quite technical, the authority should instruct an independent legal expert to review it before a decision was made.

Barrister Constanze Bell was employed by the council to do the job and has recommended the parish council’s bid is rejected.

In the papers that will be presented to the planning committee on Thursday (May 15) she says: “In my view the evidence of the Environmental Stewardship Agreement is fatal to the application and is a sufficient basis for refusal of it. I advise the council’s planning committee to reject the application based on a failure to satisfy the legal criteria, namely that use is ‘as of right’.”

The Local Democracy Reporting Service asked the county council how much it spent on the legal review and the authority has said it will not make public the amount due to commercial confidentiality reasons.

Chairperson of Ryhall Parish Council Debbie Rolfe said the recommendation was 'disappointing' considering the village has had unlimied access to the field for several decades.

Councillors on the planning committee will make the final decision.