Growth and Infrastructure Bill

The Pinkham Way Alliance has received a request from Chris Faulkner who is responsible for the Pinkham Way Village Green application. He received the letter (below) from the Open Spaces Society, he says It is vital that this matter is raised with local MPs by as many people as possible. Please send emails if you can to:

Lynne Featherstone
Theresa Villiers
David Burrowes

The letter that Chris received is as follows:

The Growth and Infrastructure Bill has its second reading in the House of Commons on Tuesday 30 October. Please write urgently to your MP to press him or her to speak against clause 13. This will make it more difficult, if not downright impossible, to register land in England as a town or village green once it has been identified for development.

The government wants to stop “vexatious” applications to register greens which, it claims, are being submitted solely to thwart development. In fact few applications are purely vexatious and the clause has the effect of killing genuine applications too.

The Bill says that a 'trigger event' 'which includes first publication of a planning application or identification of the land for potential development in a local or neighbourhood plan' puts an immediate stop on any new application to register the land as a green. The trigger event may not even be public.

Furthermore, as soon as this part of the Act takes effect, no application to register can be made for land already subject to a trigger event unless that application has already been submitted.

When writing to your MP do, if you can, cite an example of a green in the constituency which has been registered in the last few years, is clearly being used and enjoyed by local people, and which might not have been registered had the Growth and Infrastructure Bill been law at the time. Send us your examples too.

The Open Spaces Society is briefing MPs to speak against this, and will be drafting amendments for the committee stage of the Bill. We shall keep you posted on progress.

Do contact me if you need further information. Please act fast, the second reading is on Tuesday.

Thanks for your help.

Kate Ashbrook
General Secretary
The Open Spaces Society
25A Bell Street
Henley-on-Thames RG9 2BA
The Open Spaces Society is a registered charity (no 1144840)
and a company limited by guarantee, registered in England & Wales (no 7846516).

Bidesh Sarkar
Chair, Pinkham Way Alliance