My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 40D standing in my name. I apologise for my voice, which is going. Amendment 40A introduces
a new clause which amends the Commons Act 2006, reducing the time period from two years to one in cases where the application relates to land in England—that is, in proposed new subsection (3A)(a)—and, in relation to land in Wales, proposed new subsection (3A)(b) specifies,
“the period of two years beginning with that cessation”.
I remind the House that I am a member of the CLA. In its briefing, it considers that the two years proposed for England is too long a period. The briefing states that where people have genuine concerns—which I am sure they do,
“that they are being denied access to a site which they genuinely believe they are entitled to have registered as a village green or the basis on which they are accessing it has been changed, it need not take more than one year for the community to be galvanised into action, hold a local meeting, gather their evidence and make an application for a claim. A year is really quite a generous period of time”.
The briefing goes on to say:
“The proposal for the new map and statement procedure (clause 13) is going to involve wide publication of such a deposit including notification to parish councils and notification by email to any party having requested the registration authority to inform them of the deposit of such statements. So notification will to all intents be instantaneous”.
In Committee on 30 January this year, the Minister offered reassurance that,
“where a landowner statement is deposited with a commons registration authority, the authority will be required to publicise it”.—[Official Report, 30/1/13; col. 1602.]
My understanding is also that anyone interested in the notification can, if they give their e-mail details, have this information sent to them as soon as the declaration has been registered by the registration authority, with parish councils being notified in the same way. That being so, my amendment reduces the time limit from two years to one.
One difficulty is that if a landlord tries to sell some land to which there has been some element of public access for a period, the purchaser’s solicitors will be filled with trepidation about a potential claim coming for village green status. Generally they will insist on the use being stopped or made permissive, and on waiting two years to see whether a challenge is made before completing the purchase. This is unnecessary in the context of today’s modern communications. With further apologies for my voice, I beg to move.