3rd Party Land Ownership – Moor Lane & Wesfield Common

Just some initial high-level comments on the 3rd party land ownership issues which has resulted in Moor Lane being discounted in the access planning application as an access route to the proposed new housing development.

It seems that there are a number of different factors in play:

• Established “rights of way” across the Common to Moor Lane.
• Third party land of unclear ownership.
• Third party land in ownership of known organisations that would be required for access.

These bits of land run across the common including a strip running parallel to Moor Lane where it joins the common – currently marked out by the wooden stakes / and drainage ditches.

In English Common Law there is a court ruling associated with a case called Stokes Vs. Cambridge whereby it was established that where a third party landowner controls a piece of land that is essential to a development (usually the point of access) the land should be valued at a third of the profit from the development (the enhanced site), i.e. these bits of land are worth a lot of money.

So this generates two issues:

a) Lots of money for access where ownership is known and the land is used for access.

b) Prohibitive insurance to cater for a later demand for money when an owner turns up asking for his money.

I am not a lawyer / planning consultant so this is probably a fairly crude explanation – If I find out more I will post it up / modify this article.