Protection for landowners

Informal public use of a path or land, over a twenty-year period, can lead to a claim to lawfully use that land. If successful, this can result in the recording of a new public right of way or town or village green. 

As a landowner you or your representative can challenge that use. This helps to protect your land against such claims. To do this you need to show, that at the relevant time, you did not intend for these rights to be acquired or dedicated. Physical actions you can take include displaying notices, fencing land, or locking gates. There is also a legal process that allows you to document and record your intentions with us. This involves the deposit of a highways statement, a highways declaration and/or a landowner statement.

Different legislation covers the use of land for public rights of way and town or village greens. However, the Growth and Infrastructure Act 2013 allows for combined applications. You can therefore use the same form to register your intentions for both purposes.  The public rights of way process has two stages and these count as two separate applications.  
 

How to make an application

You will need to complete application form CA16 and send this to us. This is available, together with further details about the process, from the Department for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs' (DEFRA)

Using this form, you can:

Under Section 31(6) of the Highways Act 1980:

• Deposit a Highways Statement and Plan (stage 1).
• Lodge a Highways Declaration (stage 2).

Under Section 15A(1) of the Commons Act 2006:

• Deposit a Landowner Statement and plan. 

Highways Statement and Declaration

The Highways Statement is used to show the extent of your land and allows you to acknowledge any existing public rights of way across it.

The Highways Declaration confirms that you have not dedicated, and do not intend to dedicate, any further rights of way (other than any that you indicate at this stage). Declarations must be lodged at least one day, but no more than twenty years after the date of deposit of the Highways Statement. You should then successively renew this declaration to continue the protection. Renewals must be within twenty years of the previous declaration. If not lodged or renewed within this timeframe you will need to deposit a new Highways Statement. The relevant period is between one day and ten years for any statements and declarations made before 01 October 2013.

Note: highways statements or declarations do not prevent the recording of any existing, unrecorded public rights of way. Nor can they remove any existing recorded rights.

Landowner Statement

This brings to an end “as of right” recreational use of your land.  It must be deposited before twenty years of such use accumulates. If done correctly it will prevent the land from being registered as a Town or Village Green. Where use of the land continues, after the date of the deposit, a new period of use starts to accumulate. If this occurs you need to deposit a new statement within twenty years.

Note: if twenty years of recreational use has accrued, before your deposit, your actions will trigger a one-year period of grace.  Local inhabitants can apply to register the land as a town or village green during this period. For further information about this process see Commons and town and village greens.

Submitting your application

All applications for statements and declarations must be accompanied by the requisite fee.  We suggest that you first send us a draft version of your application, by email, with the accompanying plan(s). This will allow us to calculate and inform you of the correct fee and we will send you a link to our online payment system. Alternatively, you can include a cheque with your application, payable to Dorset Council. We can issue a receipt if requested. 

Application forms must be then sent by post - your application is only considered duly made once we receive both the fee and a correctly completed form.  At this stage we will update the register of deposits and publish a notice of the deposit on our website. In addition, for Landowner Statements we will post site notices on the land affected.

Existing recorded public rights of way are shown on the Definitive Map and Statement. You can clarify these with us before you submit a highways statement and/or declaration.

It is your responsibility to ensure that you complete an application properly. We will only hold statements and declarations on deposit. We may highlight any obvious errors or omissions, but we will not make any judgement about the validity of any information.

We do not verify the legal ownership shown on any application plan submitted by, or on behalf of a landowner. Further details regarding land ownership should be sought from the Land Registry Service.

You should seek the advice of a competent independent legal advisor if you are unsure what to include with your application.

You should keep a copy of all the completed forms and maps.

Schedule of charges

The charging scheme is set out in The Commons (Registration of Town or Village Greens) and Dedicated Highways (Landowner Statements and Declarations) (England) Regulations 2013 (Section 2(2)(d)).  

We reserve the right to add a reasonable charge to cover any extra work required.  For example, for landowner statements we must post site notices. In these cases, there is an additional cost where there is a large acreage, or several separate parcels. We also consider whether physical boundaries such as roads or hedgerows are present.

(These charges will be reviewed annually).

When determining the number of parcels of land for charging purposes, we will follow paragraph 40 of the DEFRA guidance which states:

'If the application relates to multiple parcels of land, such parcels should be identified on the map by coloured edging and clearly described in paragraph 4 of Part A of the statement. A number of contiguous fields may (emphasis added) be treated as one parcel of land, even if separated by such physical boundaries such as roads or hedgerows'.

Register of Landowner Deposits

We have to record all deposits received from October 2013 as an online landowner deposits register.

The paper register can be inspected free of charge at County Hall, Dorchester, by appointment only Monday to Thursday: 9.30am to midday and 2pm to 4pm, Friday: 9.30am to midday. Excluding Public Holidays.

Recent Landowner Deposits

Following receipt of an application we have to:
•    publish notice on our website
•    email any person who has asked to be informed of applications and given us an email address for that purpose
•    for Landowner Statements only - post a notice at or near to one obvious place of entry to the land in the application, or near at least one conspicuous place on the boundary of the land, for no less than 60 days.

Please see Current Notices of Highways Statements and Declarations and Landowner Statements below:
 

(No current notices)