Local Green Space or a town or village green

Local Green Space and town or village green look like the same thing to a community trying to protect a field. They are not related at all. Local Green Space is a planning designation made through a local or neighbourhood plan, decided by the planning system on planning grounds. A town or village green is a registration under the Commons Act 2006, decided on evidence of 20 years of recreational use, by a different authority, with no planning balance available to anyone.

Choose the wrong route and you spend two years assembling the wrong evidence. This comparison is England-specific.

What each designation protects

Local Green Space protects land that is demonstrably special to a local community. National policy in the National Planning Policy Framework, current edition published 17 August 2026, sets three tests: the land must be reasonably close to the community it serves, it must be demonstrably special and hold particular local significance, and it must be local in character rather than an extensive tract of land. The significance can rest on beauty, historic importance, recreational value, tranquillity or richness of wildlife.

Registration as a town or village green protects a right, not a quality. What it records is that local people have used the land for lawful sports and pastimes as of right for at least 20 years. The land may be scruffy, unattractive and ecologically dull. If the use is proved, the character of the land is beside the point.

That difference runs through everything else. One route asks whether the land deserves protection. The other asks what has actually happened on it since the late 2000s.

How Local Green Space is designated

Designation happens through a development plan document, meaning either a local plan produced by the local planning authority or a neighbourhood plan produced by a parish council or neighbourhood forum.

The sequence for a neighbourhood plan runs like this:

1. The qualifying body identifies candidate sites and gathers evidence against the three policy tests.
2. The draft plan, with the designation and its justification, goes out for consultation.
3. An independent examiner tests whether the plan meets the basic conditions, including whether each designation is properly justified.
4. The plan goes to a local referendum in the neighbourhood area.
5. The local planning authority makes the plan, at which point the designation carries full weight.

Evidence for a neighbourhood plan designation is a site-by-site case: photographs, a boundary plan, the community's use of the land, historic associations, wildlife records, and a note on why the land is local in character. Landowner objections at examination usually attack the third test, arguing the parcel is too large, or attack the evidence of particular local significance.

The designation can be revisited. Plans are reviewed, and a future plan can drop a Local Green Space. That is the honest weakness of the route.

Registration under the Commons Act 2006

An application under section 15 of the Commons Act 2006 goes to the commons registration authority, which is the county council or the unitary authority rather than the district planning authority. Anyone can apply, including an individual.

The authority decides on the evidence. Contested applications are usually referred to a non-statutory public inquiry before an independent inspector, who hears witnesses, tests the user evidence and reports with a recommendation. The process resembles litigation more than planning, and objectors with resources will cross-examine.

Registration is effectively permanent. Once land is on the register, Victorian statute makes it an offence to damage the green or interrupt its use, and works on registered land need consent under section 38 of the Commons Act 2006 from the Secretary of State, handled by the Planning Inspectorate. The section 38 consent route is narrow and is not a planning application in disguise.

Two limits catch applicants out. The Growth and Infrastructure Act 2013 inserted a list of trigger events, so the right to apply is suspended once, for example, a planning application for the land has been publicised or a draft plan identifies it for potential development. And the Supreme Court has held that land held by a public body for statutory purposes incompatible with public recreation cannot be registered, which removes a good deal of school, hospital and highway land from the field.

The 20 years of recreational use you have to prove

The statutory test is that a significant number of the inhabitants of a locality, or of a neighbourhood within a locality, have indulged as of right in lawful sports and pastimes on the land for at least 20 years. Every phrase in that sentence has been litigated.

As of right means without force, without secrecy and without permission. A sign saying the owner permits access defeats the claim, which is exactly why such signs appear. Lawful sports and pastimes covers dog walking, children playing, kite flying, informal football and blackberry picking, and it does not cover use of a defined path to get somewhere, which is a different legal animal.

The numerical test is not a proportion. It means enough users to show the land was in general use by the local community rather than by a handful of individuals. Locality usually means an administrative area such as a parish or ward, and neighbourhood must be capable of being identified as a cohesive area, which is where many applications fail.

The evidence is people. Completed user evidence questionnaires from 20 or more households, each covering a period of years, with witnesses prepared to attend an inquiry. Aerial photographs and old maps support the picture. If use ceased, an application must be made within one year of the end of the 20-year period under the provisions as amended in 2013.

What each one does to a development proposal

In practice the green is the stronger protection and the harder thing to obtain. Local Green Space is a policy hurdle that a determined promoter can test through an application and an appeal. A registered green stops the scheme.

Who decides each

Local Green Space decisions run through the plan-making system: the local planning authority or qualifying body proposes, an examiner tests, and for a neighbourhood plan the community votes. Objectors and landowners engage through consultation and the examination.

Green registration runs through the commons registration authority, and the authority's planning function is irrelevant to it. A council can be the applicant's decision-maker and the landowner at the same time, which is uncomfortable but lawful, and is one reason inquiries are used.

Understanding how a registration risk sits on a site matters to both sides. A promoter who discovers an unregistered green claim late has a problem no design change will solve.

Choosing which route to pursue

Start with the facts, not the ambition.

If you have 20 years of open recreational use by local people, no permission signs, no gates, and the land is privately owned rather than held for an incompatible statutory purpose, the green route is worth taking seriously. Check the trigger events first, because a live planning application may already have closed the door.

If the use is recent, or permissive, or the land is valued for its appearance and wildlife rather than for what people do on it, Local Green Space is the realistic route, and the work goes into the plan process rather than into witness statements.

Pursuing both is possible where the plan timetable and the registration window allow it, and the evidence bases barely overlap. Understanding how common land and greens affect a site helps either way. Anyone assessing what a proposal would actually need can work through the report types at the planning document index.

This is general guidance rather than legal advice. Check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it.