New threat to our green and pleasant land

The year 2012 could be critical for the future of town and village greens, one of the oldest concepts of public land.

In February, the landmark case of Markham and Little Francis at Weymouth in Dorset will be heard in the Court of Appeal, while the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, under pressure from the Department for Communities and Local Government, looks to be set on changing the law to make it more difficult to register land as greens.

Markham and Little Francis is the name of 17 hectares on the west side of Weymouth; it was registered as a green in 2001. This protects it from development.

Now Betterment Properties, which bought the land in 2004, is arguing that the land should not have been registered: it wants to build there. The plucky Society for the Protection of Markham and Little Francis is defending the case, with backing from the Open Spaces Society.

Land can be registered as a green if it has been used by local people for 20 years for informal recreation, without asking permission or being stopped. Once registered as a green, the land is protected from development by laws which have been in force for more than a century. The registration authority is the county or unitary council.

Greens which have been registered in the last two years include the 10-hectare Whitchurch Green in Bristol; the one-hectare Newbridge Meadows in Bath and North East Somerset; Sophie's Pitch at Easington in Gloucestershire and land at Barra Close, Highworth, near Swindon. The process of greens registration is not straightforward and the Open Spaces Society helps its members through it. We publish a book, Getting Greens Registered, which gives step-by-step advice on how to determine whether land has potential for registration and, if it does, how to go about it. Applicants must gather evidence of use from local people and send it to the registration authority with a map showing not only the area claimed but also the area from which the majority of users come.

Provided the authority accepts the application as duly made, it will advertise it, allowing six weeks for objections. If the application is controversial, the authority will hold a public inquiry, with an inspector who may be a barrister, to hear the evidence and make a recommendation to the councillors who take the decision. When the land is owned by the council or by a developer it can be particularly contentious as confirmation of green status can scupper development.

Unfortunately, even well-argued applications do not always succeed. In 2007, campaigners failed in their attempts to register the breezy hilltop at South Purdown, near Bristol.

A landowner may voluntarily register land – for example the Ernest Cook Trust has registered part of its green at Trent near Sherborne in Dorset. Controversially, it plans to build a village shop on the remainder, which local people are now seeking to register.

It can take time for an application to be determined since there are no time limits beyond the six-week objection period and councils are under increasing pressures. Save Yeovil Rec has been battling for many years to register Mudford recreation ground, an expansive space in the heart of Yeovil where South Somerset District Council has granted itself planning consent for a massive sports complex.

Recognising that the process could be streamlined and expedited, the Open Spaces Society offered a set of proposed improvements to the former environment minister, including the introduction of timescales at every stage, and greater liaison and transparency. These did not need a change in the law, merely in the guidance.

Sadly, they weren't taken up. Instead, Defra, under pressure from the greedy development industry, proposed a package of measures in a consultation paper last summer. These could wreck the process for registering greens, and pose a significant threat to green spaces throughout England, especially when they are considered alongside the DCLG's National Planning Policy Framework with its "presumption in favour of sustainable development' (whatever that means, and it's not defined).

First, Defra claims that greens registration is being used to prevent development, but where is the evidence? No doubt there are a few such cases but the vast majority, where development is on the cards, are triggered by people realising that land they love is under threat, that they've enjoyed it for many years and therefore it ought to be registered as a green.

Defra wants to introduce a "character test", restricting the applications to the traditional, pretty land in the heart of villages. But the whole point about greens registration is that it applies to any land with the necessary user evidence – including scruffy, out-of-the-way places where people walk the dog and pick blackberries. Surely this is localism at its best?

Defra proposes to rule out applications where sites have been designated for development or have planning permission. The Open Spaces Society has said that people should be given a reasonable time to gather and submit evidence of green status before any planning permission is granted or a decision taken on the future use of the site.

Otherwise, sites such as Markham and Little Francis, right on the edge of towns, could be built on before people had time to gather the evidence for registration as a green.

So the message is this: if you think you've got a green, apply to register it now.