Trees on unregistered land

[Amelanchier]

Without checking, I'm fairly confident that the wording of the legislation simply requires that the owner/occupier be served. To that end and in addition to the terms 'amenity' or 'tree', the act does not define 'served'.

 

The catchily named Town and Country Planning (Tree Preservation)(England) Regulations 2012 state the following procedure in regulation 5

 

"5 - (1) As soon as practicable after making an order, and before confirming it, the authority which made it shall—

 

(a)serve on the persons interested in the land affected by the order—

(i)a copy of the order; and

(ii)a notice containing the particulars specified in paragraph (2);"

 

So there is no definition of 'serving' - the extant (but presumably soon to be revised) guidance in the Blue Book considers it reasonable to do the following;

 

"3.27 Where it appears to the LPA that land affected by the TPO is unoccupied, the documents and notice will be taken as duly served if they are addressed to 'the owners and occupiers' of the land described by the LPA and are affixed conspicuously to some object on the land."

 

In essence, I expect that notification of a new Order is only important insofar as it allows an opportunity to object - there appears to be no suggestion that one can't be made if people aren't notified though clearly that may form the basis of a legal challenge to its validity.

[HCR]

Land registry and the commons registers are two different things. Common land does not have to be registered at the land registry as belonging to someone. There is a guidance note from Defra somewhere on this.

 

Very true indeed. I hope nothing I said suggested otherwise.