Plans for comprehensive record of common land and town and village greens delayed "by at least 12 months"

Government plans to achieve a comprehensive current record of common land and town and village greens nationwide have been delayed for at least 12 months, it has emerged.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Huw Irranca-Davies, blamed the delay on slower than expected progress with the pilot scheme involving seven local authorities.

The seven authorities taking part in the pilot project are Cornwall, Devon, Hertfordshire, Kent and Lancashire county councils, the County of Herefordshire district council, and Blackburn with Darwen borough council. Collectively, they cover 18% of registered common land in England.

The move towards a comprehensive current record was enabled by Part 1 of the Commons Act 2006, which allows commons registration authorities – county councils in two-tier areas, district councils in areas without a county council, and London borough councils – to bring up-to-date their registers of commons and greens, established under the Commons Registration Act 1965.

Under the legislation, individuals can apply to register past unrecorded events, and registration authorities can make proposals in the public interest to update the registers. People may also apply to deregister wrongly registered land, and to register new land as common land.

The pilot was designed to test the efficacy of procedures, guidance, costs and benefits, with the intention to commence national implementation in England from October 2010 onwards.

But the minister told Parliament: “In order to ensure that we are able to learn fully all the lessons from the pilot, I have decided that the decision on whether, how and when to go ahead with national commencement should await the completion of the extended pilot period in September 2010. This means a delay in national implementation of at least a year from our original intention to commence from October 2010, but will help ensure that decisions on how best to proceed following the pilot are based on the best possible information.”