NHS Property Services wins appeal to the Supreme Court

On 11 December 2019 the highest court in the land, the Supreme Court, delivered its landmark ruling on the town and village green appeal case successfully brought by NHS Property Services.

The Supreme Court ruled that registration of publicly owned land as town and village greens should not be permitted where the registration is incompatible with the statutory purpose for which land is held by the public sector.

The case brought by NHSPS concerned an area of woodland, Leach Grove Wood, at NHSPS’s Leatherhead Community Hospital site which was said to have been used for recreation by local people for decades. In 2013 Surrey County Council registered the woodland as a town and village green, despite the recommendations to the contrary by its own inspector at public enquiry. What followed was a “marathon” of litigation that resulted in the Supreme Court decision which sees the registration quashed once and for all.

The ruling has far reaching implications for both NHS and other public sector landowners. It protects the future use and redevelopment of accessible land at hospitals and other sites in public ownership. It could in principle lead to town and village green registrations of publicly owned land made to date being reviewed.

The case confirms that a public authority’s use or proposed use of its land prevails over restrictive town and village green registration, which could effectively blight sites preventing them being put to the statutory use for which they are intended.

NHSPS is pleased with the Supreme Court ruling, which it believes to be the right decision. If NHSPS, advised by its own inhouse legal team and external legal advisers Womble Bond Dickinson, had not taken the decision to challenge the Court of Appeal ruling on Leach Grove Wood, the status of public sector land would be looking radically different now. Specifically, in the case of Leach Grove Wood, NHSPS would be limited in its ability to manage and potentially improve Leatherhead Community Hospital impacting on its ability to provide facilities for the delivery of excellent patient care by the local healthcare commissioners and stakeholders.

NHSPS are committed to engaging with local communities across its portfolio so informed decisions can be made to ultimately enable excellent patient care across the NHS estate. In this particular case, NHSPS were of the view that it was important to establish a clear legal precedent on the future use of public land.

This Supreme Court decision sets an important precedent to ensure NHSPS, the wider NHS and other public sector organisations, can continue to protect and realise benefits from the public sector estate. NHSPS are pleased to have taken a lead on this on behalf of the NHS and the public sector, alongside the Lancashire County Council who brought a case simultaneously.

The full judgement is available here.