The Opinion continued by stating that several matters regarding the Consent Order were curious. It is puzzling that the parties felt able to determine by consent (and that the Court of Appeal agreed) not only the state of the Rights Section of the register, but also what the Land Section should state. It is strange that the Respondents agreed to support Mr. Whitfield in any application he might make to the Secretary of State under section 194 of the Law of Property Act 1925 concerning the pre-existing fences. If it was concluded that the 80 acres were not properly registrable as common land, why was any application to the Secretary of State necessary?
Answering those questions should reveal whether the Council was right to have removed the 80 acres from the Land Section of the register, or whether it was not able to do so, because by then the original registration had already become final.
The date for the new Inquiry was set for 28th June 2011 at the Village Centre, Kingsley, which gave me little time to search for the missing page 3 of the Consent Order from the Court of Appeal 1978.
The obvious place to look was in the Registration Office in Winchester; however, several previous trips over the years had informed me that it was not in the files. Perhaps the officers might know, so I emailed a request to the manager of the Commons Registration Department. Unfortunately, it revealed nothing.
2011 Andy Gratton-Kane HCC Commons Registration Dept.
Next, I made a request under EIR, and the officer tried to be helpful but could only find a copy of the Consent Order which they had since 2002, though that also had page 3 missing.
2011 EIR LETTER re Broxhead
2011 14th December emails under foi HCC cannot find page 3
Consent Order sent via EIR 2011
Lastly, I tried the Chief Executive’s Office, but they also could not help.
2011 Copy of appeal request
It was pure luck that a friend and colleague, Jim Colborne, suggested I try Bob Milton, as he remembered them discussing it a while back. Sure enough, Bob came up trumps and provided a copy with the missing page three.
It was a significant finding.
Next time: to be continued.
All 'TCHCC' Parts so far
