Rowena Meager's Property Law Blog

Section 15A of the Commons Act 2006 (“the 2006 Act”) makes provision for a landowner to deposit a statement with a commons registration authority (“CRA”) the effect of which is to bring an end to any period of qualifying use for the purposes of an application to register land as a town or village green (“TVG”) pursuant to section 15 of the 2006 Act.

The Commons (Registration of Town or Village Greens) and Dedicated Highways (Landowner Statements and Declarations) (England) Regulations 2013 (“the 2013 Regulations”) make provision for the form and content of the landowner statement (Reg 2), the effect of a compliant statement being given to the CRA (Reg 3), and the steps that must be taken by the CRA upon receipt of a compliant statement (Reg 4). The steps the CRA must take pursuant to Reg 4 include sending an acknowledgement of receipt and publicising notice of receipt.

Reg 3(2) provides that in a case where a landowner provides a landowner statement under section 15A(1) of the 2006 Act combined with a deposit under section 31(6) of the Highways Act 1980 (“the 1980 Act”), it shall be treated as having been given to an appropriate authority in accordance with section 322(2) and (3) of the 1980 Act. Section 322(2) prescribes the methods by which a person may ‘give’ notice but further provides that “if it is proved that [the notice] was not received by the person to whom it was addressed” it would be deemed not to have been given or served.

In a recent decision of the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead (“RBWM”), as CRA, in respect of an application to register land known as ‘Land off Coombe Lane’ as a TVG (“the Coombe Lane case”), in circumstances where the CRA had failed to publicise receipt of a landowner statement which an Inspector found had been ‘given’ to the CRA, the question arose whether that failure to publicise receipt, which would have alerted local users to the application (and given them notice of the need to make any application for registration within a year if they wished to do so), caused the landowner statement to be ineffective (ie invalid).

This is an issue that was predicted by commentary in Gadsden & Cousins on Commons and Greens (3^rd Ed, 2020) wherein it says “It seems likely that there will be disputes in the future about whether a landowner statement is effective to bring to an end a period of qualifying use where there is some doubt about whether all the procedural requirements have been met”, ¶15-13, and “it may be possible to argue that a statement is ineffective for the purposes of section 15A where notice has not been given in accordance with reg. 4”, ¶15-14.

In the Coombe Lane case the Inspector found as a matter of fact that a landowner statement had been given to the CRA but that the CRA had failed to undertake the steps required by Reg 4. The Applicant in the Coombe Lane case advocated for a purposive interpretation of the relevant legislation on the ground that Parliament had clearly intended that local inhabitants should have notice of any statement having been lodged which, under section 15(3) of the 2006 Act, would then give them a year to submit an application for registration. In making that submission the Applicant relied upon the language of section 15A(6) of the 2006 Act which mandates the CRA to take the prescribed steps upon receipt, namely those set out in the 2013 Regulations.

The Applicant’s stance relied upon the dicta of Lord Steyn in R v Soneji & Another [2006] 1 AC 340, ¶ [14], which draws a distinction between statutory requirements that are mandatory and directory, the former justifying an approach to statutory construction it was argued that would interpret the legislation so as to find a landowner statement to be ineffective where the section 15A(6) requirement had not been complied with by the CRA.

In opposition, the Objector impressed upon the Inspector the appropriateness of a straightforward approach to statutory interpretation that would result in the statutory provisions being construed in accordance with the actual and perfectly straightforward language used therein. The effect of the legislation, it was argued, was that once a Reg 2 compliant landowner statement has been given to the CRA, according to Reg 3 it shall be treated as having been deposited with the CRA under section 15A(1) of the 2006 Act. The effect of that deposit is that the statement is to be regarded as bringing to an end any period of qualifying user.  

In conclusion on this issue the Inspector found that there was insufficient support for reading the 2013 Regulations in a purposive way such that the Applicant’s argument for invalidity would follow, and he found, crucially, that reading the actual statutory words “… the period of user as of right is ended upon the statement being deposited and not when that deposit is advertised. In a system where the date on which user as of right ends is the most important consideration, Parliament ought to be taken to have been very particular when it used this language … “. Accordingly, he recommended the Application be refused on the ground that a compliant landowner statement had been deposited with the CRA and that started the ‘section 15(3) clock’ ticking. In this case more than one year had elapsed between the date of the landowner statement having been given and the application to register the relevant land as a TVG, thus the Application was out of time.

That was not the only ground upon which the Inspector recommended refusal. Prohibitory signage had also been erected on the Application Land more than a year before the Application, thus rendering subsequent user vi. The full report of the Inspector can be found here, the discussion relating to landowner statements (and the factual background thereto) being between ¶ [21] and ¶ [86].

I represented the successful Objector at an 8 day public inquiry into the Application in February / March 2024 (the decision was made in April 2025).