The Environmental Law Foundation (ELF) has been involved in an interesting and unusual public inquiry this year. Under Commons Act (CA) 2006 s16, an owner of a village green can apply to the secretary of state to deregister it. Village green law is an idiosyncratic area of the law and a deregistration application unusual. In order to deregister a village green, the applicant must propose replacement land and demonstrate that that land is at least as good as, if not better than, the land to be lost. The public interest test of both sites will be under scrutiny.

In January and March 2022, a public inquiry was held to decide the fate of Woodcock Hill Village Green, which is also a Local Wildlife Site and lies within the Green Belt. To register a village green, an application must be made to the local registration authority, demonstrating ‘a significant number of the inhabitants of any locality, or of any neighbourhood within a locality, have indulged as of right in lawful sports and pastimes on the land for a period of at least 20 years’ (CA 2006 s15(2)(a)). Registered as a village green (under CA 2006 s15) in 2008 after a lengthy public inquiry, Woodcock Hill has been under the careful stewardship of local people, in particular the Woodcock Hill Village Green Committee, for many years.

In 2020, the committee received notice from Taylor Wimpey, the owner of Woodcock Hill, that it intended to seek deregistration of part of Woodcock Hill Village Green. On 24 May 2022, we received the hugely disappointing news that the planning inspector’s decision was to allow deregistration, which will pave the way for a planning application for hundreds of homes.

The village green has been managed by many members of the Borehamwood community, with the purpose of wildlife and habitat conservation. Woodcock Hill is a natural rustic place of unimproved grassland, and to find such a wild area in this urban environment, so close to people’s homes, is unusual. It has provided the setting for many community events and activities during a long history of use. It is a typical village green and lies at the heart of the Borehamwood community. The community have loved, treasured and maintained this Local Wildlife Site and village green for years, preserving and enhancing its conservation and biodiversity value, as well as holding many cultural events, schools’ nature studies, and scout activities.

Sadly, in 2018, Taylor Wimpey withdrew its permission for the community to maintain the land for conservation. This included removing permission to access the site with machinery for the annual mowing and removal of the cuttings, so important to maintain the special grassland for which it was designated a Local Wildlife Site.

Our main argument against deregistration was that the replacement land did not match the nature value of the deregistration land and would be wholly different in its natural aspects. Because of its wild nature, the deregistration land fostered a different experience for its users from that which the heavily-grazed replacement land would do. Taylor Wimpey has proposed many ecological improvements to the replacement land, including introducing formal play and park infrastructure. We argued that this would create another anodyne park space like many already in the area; what was special about Woodcock Hill was its wildness.

The community also presented evidence about a shift in those who will benefit from the village green. When it was originally designated, the neighbourhood was defined specifically for residents of Hillside Ward, Borehamwood, as defined at the public inquiry. The people of the Borehamwood neighbourhood who directly access Woodcock Hill are of a lower socio-economic background than the neighbouring Elstree. The replacement land moves the centre of gravity to Elstree, removing the benefit from the neighbourhood for whom the village green designation was originally granted.

To say the heart will be ripped out of the community by this decision is no exaggeration. Woodcock Hill has been voluntarily maintained and looked after by the local community. They have poured hundreds of thousands of hours of their time into the stewardship of Woodcock Hill, not for payment or reward, but rather fulfilment and love of place. By making this decision, the inspector has removed the object of that love; the community has made clear that they have no relationship with the replacement land – no history with it or investment in it – and they will not have the same motivation to love and look after the new site. The inspector didn’t even touch on this loss of community goodwill. We argued that the community feeling for Woodcock Hill should not be overlooked.

ELF is nervous about this decision. The very essence of the registration of a village green should not be reduced to an administrative process to deregister whenever a landowner wants to use a registered site. We believe it sets a dangerous precedent and will be noted by developers.