Campaigners have won a supreme court appeal to stop houses being built on a park protected by a 100-year-old statutory trust in Shrewsbury, in a landmark ruling for the protection of green spaces.
A judgment handed down on Wednesday after a five-year legal battle ruled in favour of a resident who argued a statutory trust created in 1926 gave residents rights of recreation over the land, even after the council had sold it to a developer.
Dr Peter Day, acting on behalf of Greenfields Community Group, brought the legal challenge and said “the people of Shrewsbury feel completely vindicated by today’s ruling”.
“This saga should never have dragged on for so long and would never have happened if Shrewsbury town council had kept proper records of public land and the statutory trust which granted the people of Shrewsbury rights over the land 100 years ago,” he said.
The judgment will have national implications for other councils which plan to sell off pockets of green space in opposition to residents.
“This clarification of the planning law applying to the sale and development of public land is a warning to local authorities and a victory for community groups across the country,” Day added.
The Leigh Day solicitor Stephanie Hill, who represented Day, said the judgment “will be hugely significant for our client and other local community groups who wish to protect their right to open spaces”.
Shrewsbury town council sold a part of Greenfields recreation ground in 2017 to a housing developer, without advertising or consulting the public.
Supreme court justices agreed with Day that Shrewsbury residents’ rights over the land were not extinguished by its sale and should have been considered by Shropshire council before it granted planning permission for the housing.
As a result of the judgment, planning permission for 15 houses to be built by CSE Developments on the site has now been quashed. Day’s legal challenge was rejected by the high court and court of appeal, before he appealed to the supreme court.
Last year, in response to an independent report into the land sale, Shrewsbury council apologised “unreservedly” and pledged to return the land to public use, although it said it would wait for the supreme court judgment before taking any steps to buy the land back.
Handing down the ruling, Lady Justice Rose said: “It is our view that [Shrewsbury town council] must put robust procedures in place to ensure that an oversight such as this is not permitted to recur.”
Ian Browne, the legal manager of Good Law Project, which helped fund the case, said: “We are delighted with today’s supreme court ruling, which will set a precedent to help safeguard green spaces across the country from being sold off and the rights of communities to enjoy them for generations to come.”
A Shrewsbury council spokesperson said: “We have accepted our error in not advertising our intention of selling the portion of recreation space at Greenfields which we had identified as surplus to our needs in 2010.
“We have also adopted a much more rigorous policy to ensure that our mistake cannot occur again. We must now take some time to more fully understand the ruling and its implications.”
The council, they said, remained “committed to providing open spaces to support the health and wellbeing of residents as evidenced by our recent purchase of two large areas of land”.
