The agenda papers for the Public Rights of Way and Greens Committee meeting on 28 June have now been published (click here). This is the meeting at which councillors will consider whether to register Stoke Lodge Playing Field as a Town or Village Green.
We’ve produced an 8 minute video to provide a quick way of understanding what the issues are, and what questions have been handed over to the Committee to consider. Please click here to watch the video.
The process has been messy and complicated, and there is a lot for councillors to read. In brief, the Inspector produced a report in March 2023 that suggested two reasons why the land should not be registered. But his report also misquoted and misrepresented some of the evidence we submitted, and it ignored some key issues altogether.
All parties were offered the opportunity to comment on his report, and because his failure to deal with our evidence was so fundamental, we handed our full submissions directly to the Committee, so they could see for themselves what was wrong with the Inspector’s report.
The Inspector reviewed those comments and wrote a Note, in which he:
- admits that he was wrong on some issues and may have misinterpreted the key case that he was relying on (Winterburn);
- says that it’s up to the Committee to weigh the facts for themselves on these two issues, and that it’s open to them to conclude that the legal test for registration is met.
Our video provides an overview of the issues, the problems with the report, and the questions that the Committee will answer. Please click here to watch it for yourself.
We’re confident that when the Committee considers the issues, on the basis of the evidence we have submitted, it will decide to register Stoke Lodge as a TVG.
We need to talk about Stoke Lodge 