Says Bob Milton

The key point is that management control of the Scheme of Regulation lies with Three Rivers District Council being the successor of Chorleywood Urban District. It cannot be divested or disposed of to Chorleywood Parish Council. Neither can TRDC dispose or delegate the statutory duty to the parish council so as to get around the Statutory Duty for which they are bound and for which you can not pay for under HLS.

The continuing denial of s193 rights by CPC is a major concern and a vicarious misinterpretation made to mislead the public, its own Councillors and others such as NE. This is vicarious malfeasance and maladministration by CPC and TRDC is complicit in it.

The legal question is whether a contractual licensee eg a management organisation such as the Parish Council or a Wildlife Trust can be used to subvert the statutory duty of the dominant tenement of the land ie in this case the Scheme Manager or in others it is a grazing licence or management contract. The answer must be no as the management control remains with the Scheme manager but applies equally to say a county council which holds the land for public recreation or defence estates for military training

In this example the added question is not whether HLS agreements can be made with a local authority but can the agreement be paid for statutory duty of a local authority as set out in S28 G CROW

HLS as Natural England rightly states and as set out in the extracts paper attached cannot be paid for statutory duty. This what you are being asked to agree to and is the same as many of your colleagues have agreed to in the rush to meet the Targets for SSSI condition of October 2010.

As Natural England again recognises that public rights have to be taken into account but where the applicant steadfastly refuses to accept equestrian access I can see no way forward for you that is despite the promise that your internal guidance is to be changed in 2013 you are still working to guidance that does not expect you to take into account public access rights whether under s193 or on a highway [right of way].

Your guidance does not allow your negotiation with the public as they do not seem to qualify as having a legal interest in the land.

It is odd that NE have slipped in an addition form of legal interest not included in the original Habitat Directive which refers to just freeholder, lessee and tenant [see Fisher v English Nature for a full explanation] no mention of contractual licensees as they do not have a legal interest in the land and have no management control. Commoner’s rights are deemed to be a part of the freehold interest.

It is insufficient in law to rely on a counter signature of a person or representative of an organisation or authority who may actually be complicit or have a beneficial interest in committing what I would consider a fraud on the EU CAP.

The question of whether a Parish council is a public body seems to have more than one interpretation as according to CPC they are under the 1974 local government regulations. This needs clarification