JOIN PLANNING SANITY HERE

HELP US HELP YOU our work relies upon your donations and subscriptions to survive

MAKE A DONATION TO PLANNING SANITY HERE

Email Planning Sanity

HOME PAGE

OTHER FORUMS

Important Legal Notice

Need representation at an inquiry or a formal written presentation to your planning or village green authority. Planning Sanity may be able to help see our representation forum for more details.

SELF ADHESIVE VINYL LETTERS SIGNS AND NUMBERS quality assured products designed just for you sales@sew-n-print.co.uk Visit Our Web Site

The following colour scheme applies to docs on this site

Word Docs

PDF Docs

HTML Docs

Getting this right seems to cause communities more problems than any other aspect of the TVG process, to register a Town or Village Green you need to prove that the majority of those using the land come from either a defined locality, or from a neighbourhood within such a locality (or localities). On nearly every occasion when Planning Sanity represent communities at local inquiries we are forced to apply to change the locality or neighbourhood boundaries, applicants tend to not think or understand what these constitute, we find that they draw rough lines on a plan, that cut through boundaries of homes, miss out parts of a community, make the area too small, or too large and simply put forward areas that have no resemblance of either a locality or a neighbourhood. This briefing is intended to give you an over view, each case will very much depend upon its own criteria, but it should give you sufficient pointers to get you going.

First, understand the wording of the application form you have a choice of either stating the name of the locality or neighbourhood, this is only useful if you have a defined neighbourhood, otherwise you need to attach a plan showing the boundary of your neighbourhood. Locality being different because a locality should be an area known to law, there should be a name for the locality (but sometimes there may not, or it might be known by different names by different people, and therefore needs clarity). Therefore you should write in the locality section of the form "Name of Locality is:- ................." (we give examples of what constitutes a locality below). If you are only relying on a named locality then that is all you need to do and you do not need to supply a plan. If you are relying on a neighbourhood then if there is no defined name (for instance "........ Estate") then supply a plan, but take meticulous care of how you mark that neighbourhood on the plan, do not cut corners, always go round borders of properties, make sure you do not miss out important features, resources and odd areas of housing. There is no requirement that such plans must be to any given scale, unlike the plan required to show the land, therefore you can use any plan that is to hand, but we still recommend that you obtain the largest plan available that shows all your neighbourhood and/or locality.

Whilst at the stage of the process when you submit proofs of evidence you would be advised to include a plan of the locality as well as the neighbourhood, it is far better to hold off submitting a plan where you do not have to, after taking the last paragraph into account. This enables you to more fully grasp what it is you are required to do, and to respond to any objections that you will have received copies of by that stage.

A useful resource in relation to understanding your neighbourhoods is the Office of National Statistics which has a search engine of most neighbourhoods, but use caution in sticking strictly to these areas, as they often do not fully follow the locally known or logical boundaries, but it is a good starting block. The level of information found at the Office of National Statistics that could potentially support your stated neighbourhood is vast, from housing figures to education standards and social criteria. Use as much of this evidence in your final proofs of evidence to support your application as you think is relevant to demonstrating the cohesiveness of your community and its individuality. We can help to show you how best to present such data, for example charts or graphs.

Point out any of the following that are in either your locality or neighbourhood, and mark them on your plans.

• Shops
• Pubs
• Restaurants/Cafés
• Dentists
• Doctors
• Health Centres
• Libraries
• Community Centres
• Leisure Facilities
• Schools
• Nurseries

The numbers of people living in your locality and neighbourhood are relevant, but there is no magical sum that can be used to see what percentage of supporters and/or users you should rely on, there are far too many other factors. For instance Planning Sanity has in the last 12 months helped communities with a VG measuring 10 by 20 metres, and another being 15 hectares. Even a very large neighbourhood would not be required to demonstrate anything more than a small number of users for the very small site, if they were not to be seen to reach a point of over saturation (too many people on the very small parcel of land). Therefore whilst you have to demonstrate that a significant number of the local inhabitants use the land you do not have to take that literally in the numbers of those you say are using the land, and have submitted questionnaires. The reality is you would have a number of witnesses giving evidence to an inquiry, these are your formal witnesses as to usage, you will then most likely also have a number of others giving evidence as members of the public, and you would submit a larger number of questionnaires. All of these will only in reality be representative of the true numbers that have used the land. Whilst you should always attempt to obtain the highest number of users that your resources enable you to obtain, the mere fact that the numbers of those completing questionnaires might be as low as 5% would not be a bar to registration. R v Staffordshire County Council, ex parte Alfred McAlpine Homes Ltd [2002] sets out a useful information on what constitutes a locality, but as we shall show below this case cannot be looked at in isolation.

So what makes a locality, that is much simpler to answer than what makes a neighbourhood, because the question has been defined by the courts, whereas that for neighbourhoods has not. A locality is a legally defined area (see list below for examples), it will usually have most of the resources that would be expected in an average locality, but of course there is always the exception to the rule, for instance a 'Hamlet' is a legally defined area, but might only consist of a single row of houses, the courts have said a locality is more than a few streets, so in that respect there is a little confusion. Therefore it is always better to stick to the larger defined area as a locality, and use the term neighbourhood to define smaller areas, such as housing estates and even Hamlets. In R (Cheltenham Builders Ltd) v South Gloucestershire Council (Administrative Court) the court defined a locality as - "A locality must be more than an arbitrary area delineated on a plan; there must be a 'sufficient cohesive entity' that is capable of definition".

• Church Parish
• Civil Parish
• Electoral Ward
• Village
• Larger Housing Estate

A neighbourhood is a different beast, first there are two trains of thought on this the first follows a similar line to that of a locality, and the closer you can get to that the easier will be your case. The other is that of the state of mind of the inhabitants in what they believe to be their neighbourhood. We need to explore both of these options in order to best understand the option that you have the best chance of arguing.

Most advocates against TVG registration will argue that a neighbourhood must have all the features of a locality, shops, doctors and so forth, albeit they will accept that the area can be considerably smaller than a locality. But this is clearly wrong from the outset, if a housing estate is capable of being a neighbourhood then it would only be the rarest of neighbourhoods that would have every feature of a locality, whilst there might very well be shops, often there will not be any shop, rarely would there be a doctors surgery, even many villages these days of centralisation might not have a doctors surgery, and if it did then if we were relying upon an electoral ward a village might have two such wards, but only one might have the doctors surgery, shops and other features, are those that live in the ward where there are no such facilities really to be so disadvantaged over the other villagers, I think not, therefore in my submission far too much reliance is placed on such criteria.

Lord Hoffman in Oxford County Council v Oxford City Council Lords Decision [2006] UKHL 25 (Trap Grounds) para 27 where he sets out:-

"Any neighbourhood within a locality is obviously drafted with a deliberate imprecision which contrasts with the insistence of the old law upon a locality defined by legally significant boundaries."

"On the question of who defines "locality", the Committee will not be surprised to hear that there is case law on the issue. The term relates to recognised administrative units, such as a parish. The term "neighbourhood" is intended to distinguish the position where there is no recognised locality in other words, in an urban area. "Neighbourhood" may be a better description than a locality."

Taken together with the comments of Lord Hoffman it is clear that the term neighbourhood has to be taken to be the area where the inhabitants live, that is their state of mind as to what constitutes their neighbourhood. If we are right in this then we argue that the question of the meaning of neighbourhood should be interpreted along the following lines:-
'A neighbourhood should not be seen to correspond to any legal or physical division, but more as a social concept, the evidence for which may be given by the people who live there.'
It must though be clearly kept in mind that this question has still to be fully answered by the courts, and until it is then the question will be debated in considerable detail at virtually every contested TVG application.

Please do not hesitate in contacting us for help and advise, most of our services are free, although we encourage donations, and we do need to insist on reasonably large donations for representation at inquiries. We are an unfunded organisation and rely on the donations of those that seek our help to keep this service open as the only independent UK wide resource for communities faced with the prospect of inappropriate developments.