CLA slates Government’s ‘unjust’ refusal to accept parliamentary committees’ coastal access views

The CLA today (25 September) slammed the Government's refusal to accept two parliamentary committees' views on coastal access – denying landowners the chance to appeal against the new right of public access being imposed over their land.

The Government rejected the Efra Committee's finding that the "lack of a formal appeal process is a fundamental weakness" of the draft Marine Bill. An appeals system had also been recommended by the Joint House of Lords and House of Commons Committee.

 

However, today the Government declared it did not feel an "appeals process would be appropriate".

 

CLA President Henry Aubrey-Fletcher said: "It is absurd, unjust and unfair that the Government has rejected an independent right of appeal on the spurious grounds that the cost of all the appeals against the right to roam introduced in 2000 was disproportionably 'lengthy and expensive'.

 

"In fact, two thirds of all appeals against the right to roam were successful. It is ridiculous the Government now seems to assume its system is infallible."

 

The CLA President said: "Despite refusing a right of appeal, the Government also ruled out compensation for rural businesses and landowners who could prove they had lost out financially because of the new right of coastal access.

 

"It is hard to equate this approach with a Government that repeatedly claims 'fairness' is its calling card. There is precious little in the way of concessions in its response to pre-legislative scrutiny and public consultation to the draft Marine Bill."

 

Henry Aubrey-Fletcher added: "It is a great shame that the Minister has not heeded the advice of two parliamentary committees and the CLA among many others. The draft Marine Bill is little improved by the few concessions on coastal access that he has allowed to go through.

 

"By ignoring the majority of what the two committees have recommended with the CLA's backing, the Minister has missed a golden opportunity to correct basic inequalities on the coastal access proposals in the Bill. At the very beginning of this process, the Minister was keen to involve landowners, saying he wanted to ensure they were not adversely affected. It appears he has failed to do this."

 

 

MEDIA CONTACTS:

 

Oliver Wilson, Communications Director, 020 7460 7936 or 07702 928828, ollie.wilson@cla.org.uk,

 

Phillippa Coates, Press Officer, 020 7460 7934, phillippa.coates@cla.org.uk

 

Out of hours duty phone: 020 7201 9511.

 

NOTES TO EDITORS:

 

 

1.       In its recommendations, the Efra Committee wrote: "Discretion to Natural England – We are uneasy that the Bill places so much emphasis on simply trusting Natural England to 'get it right'. We believe landowners and occupiers, in particular, are entitled to more concrete safeguards – especially as Government intends to strike a 'fair balance' between public and private interests.

 

2. CLA appeals document for Defra:

DRAFT MARINE BILL

 

COASTAL ACCESS PROVISIONS

 

APPEALS

 

The purpose of this note is to explain the need for and the nature of giving those with an interest in the land a right to appeal against their land being designated as either coastal trail or "spreading room" as set out in the coastal access provisions of the draft Marine Bill

 

The nature of the right of appeal

 

We envisage the right of appeal being much the same as that which applied when land was designated as access land under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 (CROW).

 

Anyone with an interest in the land would have the right of appeal. Interest would be defined to include any right exercisable by virtue of ownership licence or agreement, including the rights of commoners and the holders of sporting rights.

 

The only ground of appeal would be that the designation of the trail or spreading room was not in accordance with the methodology. 

 

We accept that this may mean that methodology needs to be made rather more prescriptive in certain places. 

 

The need for a right of appeal

 

Because Defra and Natural England have ultimate control over policy and implementation on the ground, we do not believe the fair balance between the public and private interest is adequately provided for in the draft Bill.

 

In particular, we are concerned that there is not a sufficient incentive for Natural England to properly take into account the impact of designation on individual land managers, property owners and businesses. If the effect of an ill considered designation were to harm any business or otherwise result in a loss the owner would potentially have the right to be compensated in respect of his/her losses. The existence of a right of appeal would significantly, possibly totally prevent such a situation arising.

 

Appeals under CROW.

 

The need for a right of appeal was made clear by CROW.

 

Under CROW approximately 3,000 appeals were made and approximately 2000 of these were successful.

 

Both Defra and Natural England have pointed out that this resulted in only 2.3% of the total amount of land designated being removed and on that basis have questioned the need for any appeal mechanism in respect of coastal access.

 

However, this misses the point.

 

Under CROW the majority of land designated would have been unquestionably mountain, moor, heath or down defined clearly by predominant vegetation and/or altitude. The possibility of there being any dispute over the nature of the bulk of it was inevitably remote.

 

In practice therefore the concern was not about the vast expanses of land but about individual fields around the periphery of the defined area.

 

As such it is not surprising that the appeals involved such a small area of land. What is surprising is that in two thirds of those appeals the Countryside Agency was found to have failed to have mapped the areas correctly and failed to rectify those errors when representations were made in respect of the initial maps.

 

We see no reason to suppose that Natural England, as successor to the Countryside Agency, will be any different.

 

Frivolous appeals

 

For the reasons given above, we dispute the claim made by Defra and Natural England that any appeals system will be open to abuse.  After all under CROW the majority of appeals were self evidently justified because they were successful.

 

If however there was a case in which an individual abused the right, he/she should be liable to pay costs in exactly the same way as exists under CROW.

 

The exercise of this power is explained in the publication "Guidance on Appeals under Section 6 of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000". It refers to DOE Circular 8/93, paragraph 6 of Annex 1 of which states that costs can be awarded, on application, if it is found that the party against whom the application is made has behaved unreasonably and as a result caused the other party to incur unnecessary or wasted expenditure.

 

We suggest that this provides a sufficient sanction.

 

Country Land and Business Association

August 2008

 

3.  The Country Land and Business Association has a 36,000-strong membership.

 

 4.For more information about the CLA, visit: www.cla.org.uk