Appendix 3b
Submission from Rajesh Seedher (prior to meeting)
I would like to draw the committee’s attention to the following three points regarding my application to register the “Paddock” at Rickmansworth as a Village Green.
1. The recommendation by the inspector to reject the application on the basis that the land is used by people in the three immediate streets around the “Paddock” is wrong and unfair. The Act does not require a limitation on who uses the land and where they live. Although there is a requirement of locality there is no limit placed on specific proximity.
This goes against the spirit of the Act. The judgement on people using it is very subjective. It is hard to prove what would be acceptable and not acceptable. Most importantly it goes against other approved applications, which have similar usage/location.
I have enclosed such a successful application which was approved recently and which is similar in its usage and the proximity of its users.
By going ahead with the inspector’s recommendation, the registration authority will be setting a precedent against other approved application and will make it difficult for any applicant to meet the subjective issue of where people live that use the land. This should have to be challenged in the high court.
2. At the meeting, I will present a survey that demonstrates that people use the land beyond the immediate three streets referred to. This should satisfy the investigators concern and thus the application should be approved.
The investigator states that there was insufficient evidence that people beyond the three streets use the “Paddock”. Considering the land is connected to a school with children playing on the “Paddock” and that live beyond the three streets, I find it difficult to reconcile this with the view that only people in the three streets use the land.
3. I note that it is the conclusion of the Inspector that having read the evidence submitted by the applicants to the Registration Authority and having heard the oral evidence at the Inquiry he was satisfied of the tangible requirements for registration (20 year continuous use for lawful sports and pastimes; undertaken by a significant number of local inhabitants as of right) but that those local residents who provided evidence were not drawn from a wide enough spread of the “neighbourhood” as a whole but from the immediate vicinity of the application site.
I find it unsatisfactory that the Inspector has not given the applicants the opportunity to demonstrate that the site was used by local residents who live slightly further away from the site when the application guidance provided by DEFRA on its website refers merely to use of a site by “local people”.
I do not believe that this is a point that was raised during the Inquiry.
I have remedied this specific technical point by enclosing copies of xx site user forms. I have provided copies of these forms to the County Solicitor and to the Development Control Committee of Hertfordshire County Council..
Can you pass this letter to your legal team on the basis it can be referred to the Inspector and that he can take this evidence into consideration?
Can you confirm that the evidence we have provided will be admissible at the Committee?
Can you kindly confirm that HCC Planning Department will submit this evidence to the Development Control Committee at the meeting on 25th May and also provide the Committee with confirmation that this evidence addresses the minor technical point that was referred to by the Inspector in his report ?
I refer to another Village Green case – Warneford Meadow (2008) in which the neighbourhood issue was resolved proactively by the Inspector. In summary (Inspector’s report attached), the applicant eventually settled on the “Divinity Road Neighbourhood” in a locality that was a local parish.
The Inspector decided that a different area “Hill Top Road” was a neighbourhood (the Inspector’s definition of the neighbourhood) within a locality that was a parish and that a significant number inhabitants of this neighbourhood used the site. If he was wrong he was satisfied that the land had been used by the inhabitants of Divinity Road Neighbourhood.
With reference to “Warneford Meadow” should our Inquiry’s Inspector have drawn up his own definition of neighbourhood (as in “any neighbourhood”) within the locality that we provided?
It appears that for the purposes of determining the application the Inspector has confirmed that the application satisfied the requirements for registration. In obtaining several more user forms from inhabitants of the neighbourhood defined in our application we have satisfied the requirements for the “neighbourhood” we defined in our application. I cannot see how any other conclusion can be drawn.
As we intend to present our evidence and refer to the Warneford Meadow case at the Development Control Committee at the meeting on 25th May I shall be pleased if you could provide responses to the aforementioned questions as a matter of urgency.