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Last year the Court of Appeal made it significantly more difficult for new town and village greens to be registered under the Commons Act 2006. The effect of that decision might well have been to put an end to the "village green industry", so called by the cynics who consider that new village green applications are being "used as a weapon of guerrilla warfare against development of open land" (Lord Walker in R (on the application of Lewis) v. Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council & Anor [2010] UKSC 11, [2010] 2 W.L.R. 653 at [48]), had the decision been allowed to stand. However, the Supreme Court in that case, reversing the decision of the lower courts, has now put the village green industry firmly back on track. Lord Walker, giving the leading speech, recognised that "in the Commons Act 2006 Parliament has made it easier, rather than more difficult, to register a green", and this decision is certainly consistent with the spirit of that stance. As a matter of law this decision also represents a welcome return to an orthodox interpretation of the test which applies in the determination of a prescriptive claim for the registration of a new green.
This case concerned Coatham Common ("the Application Land"), land owned by Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council ("the Council"), which had been occupied under a lease by Cleveland Golf Club for upwards of 80 years until 2002. The Application Land had formed part of a golf course which, as well as having been used regularly by members of the Cleveland Golf Club, had also been used extensively, for...