Year Called: 1975 (Middle Temple)

William Webster

Qualifications: LLB (Bristol)

Memberships: Western Circuit,

Chancery Bar Association

Practice Profile:

Traditional land and planning, highways and general Chancery involving mainly land, rights over land and development.

Recent local government work has involved advice/representation on topics as diverse as

· the listing of Assets of Community Value (where he advised the local authorities concerned on the listing of the stadia at Old Trafford and Anfield)

· Traffic Regulation Orders involving a pedestrianisation project in a major city centre

· Rights of Way Diversion/DMMO (developer challenges)

· a rating appeal concerning the exclusion of highway land from the non-domestic rating list on which pay and display parking takes place

· a dispute on the status of a piped drainage channel, itself part of a comprehensive sewer network in a major city, where the sewerage undertaker was contending that the channel was a watercourse

· disposals of assets within the property portfolios of a number of local authorities where the land is either subject to trusts or to covenants which restrict development

· disputed service charges where the local authority landlord had been looking to claim a flat rate charge for its overheads and administrative costs in managing its leasehold estate (Waverley BC v Arya [2013] UKUT 0501)

· Travellers and squatters and their removal from public land. Mr Webster recently acted for a local authority which obtained a without notice injunction in the High Court under Section 187B Town & Country Planning Act. The effect of the injunction was to prevent the cutting down of trees in disregard of a Tree Protection Order and the establishment of a traveller and gypsy encampment on land in the green belt. It was a case where the authority acted speedily to prevent an anticipated breach of planning control.

Mr Webster is a specialist in town and village greens (TVG) where he acts for objector landowners and registration authorities. He regularly sits as an inspector at non-statutory inquiries. Recent TVG work has included:

· Murray House Play Area, Ottershaw for Surrey County Council (2014)

· Ongar Brick Field, Addlestone for Surrey County Council (2014)

· Land Adjoining Egerton Rothesay School, Berkhamsted for Dacorum Borough Council (2014)

· Open Space at Brynwern, Pontypool for Bron Afon Community Housing Ltd (2014)

· Leach Grove Wood, Leatherhead for Surrey County Council (2014)

· Taylor v Betterment Properties (Weymouth) Ltd [2014] UKSC 7 (heard with Paddico (267) Ltd v Kirklees MC) – Supreme Court (2014)

· Land at Rosier Wood, Billingshurst, for West Sussex County Council (2013)

· Coppins Close Copse, Berkhamsted, for Dacorum Borough Council (2013)

· Ash Meadows, Ash for Surrey County Council (2013)

· Land off Fletcher Way, Hemel Hempstead, for Dacorum Borough Council (2013)

· Eastern Fields, Exeter for Exeter City Council (2013)

· Brewery Field, Bridgewater for Sedgemoor District Council (2013)

12 College Place, Fauvelle Buildings, Southampton SO15 2FE

Tel: (023) 8032 0320 Fax: (023) 8032 0321