Woodland V Gardens/Grounds.

[Spruce Pirate]

I spoke to the guy at the FC today. Basically he said if it looks like a garden then they'd class it as a garden, if it looks like a wood they'd class it as a wood. He also mentioned OED definition and maintenance being a large part of this, so if trees are maintained in a garden like fashion (private arboretum?) then they'd class it as a garden.

 

Not sure if this helps, it seemed a bit wooly. The links to the cases above seem more concrete than my conversation.

[WelshMan]

John K,

 

 

In your link there's reference again to McInerney v Portland Port Ltd, but I still can't find the court report.

 

I have MS Word versions of both this judgment and that of Michael John Rockall v Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. These are the full judgments.

 

I see that the job's been postponed but f you're still interested then PM me an email address and I'll gladly email them to you.

[Gary Prentice]

Pm sent, thank you.

[Gary Prentice]

To the best of my knowledge, land use is defined by Land Registry, so you should be able to do a Land Registry search without alerting the 'normal' powers such as the council - it's the same search as when you're buying a house but you can order it yourself online.

 

There are various designations - agricultural, domestic dwelling, greenbelt etc. and so long as it shows that the area concerned lies within the curtilage it should fall within the domestic dwelling heading, although there may be covenants on this. This matters as much to your client in his ongoing plans to build something planning exempt, presuming the exemption is not an agricultural one based on total holding.

 

Note though, it's worth checking the defined curtilage - even if the area has been historically used as garden this isn't always strictly speaking legitimate. My own place for example looks like one plot, but is actually three, previous owners having bought different bits of adjoining land. One is the original domestic dwelling plot which has planning exemptions but is subject to listed building consent, a second is unencumbered agricultural and the third is agricultural with covenants. Walking round my 'garden' you could never identify which was which unless you knew, and what you do with trees/construction etc. could be perfectly legitimate in one part of the 'garden' but not in another.

 

Alec

 

I've downloaded the Land Registry Title Plan, but It only shows an outline (in red). I'm unsure if this is the plan you meant.