An allotment association has won a legal battle with the freeholder of a patch of land to have it listed as an asset of community value (ACV).

The Starkholmes Road Allotments Association had nominated the patch of land in Matlock owned by Brian Newton as an ACV in June 2021.

According to the Localism Act 2011, if land is listed as an ACV, when it is put up for sale, a six-week period begins during which a community group can express an interest in putting together a bid to buy it. If one does, that triggers a six-month moratorium on sale to give them time to do so. 

Newton intended to pursue the residential development potential of the land, which had been used for allotments for over 100 years. He challenged the decision of Derbyshire Dales District Council to list the land as an ACV in 2021. 

Simon Bird KC, for Newton, argued the council’s legal services manager, Lee Gardner, had wrongly applied the test for listing land as an ACV set out in section 88 of the Localism Act, 2011 - that it was ‘realistic to think’ use of the land as an allotment would continue.

Bird argued Gardner had taken the ‘realistic to think’ test ‘so loosely that it provides no meaningful threshold for listing’.

The Starkholmes Allotment Association had been served with a notice to quit Newton’s land no later than September 29 2022, the court heard.

Even if Newton failed in obtaining planning permission for the land, he had determined to let the land turn to scrub, Bird added. But Judge Neville, sitting in the first-tier tribunal, said it was realistic to think the council might have exercised its statutory powers to compulsorily lease Newton’s land for allotment use.

‘All that is required is that it is a realistic possibility, which is more than fanciful’, the judge said. ‘Mr Gardner, and the tribunal, can appropriately place weight on the strength of community feeling to make it realistic to think that there would be unmet need for allotments once these ones were closed.’

 

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