Possible purchase of council owned land next to property anyone got any experience of this.

TallGirl

My house is the end of a small close with a council owned field/meadow surrounding the side and back. As you can see the previous owners purchased a small triangle making the front garden slightly bigger. 

My house is quite dark out the back (north facing) and I would love to create an opening out to the side and maybe eventually put a small single storey extension on it. This would be possible if I could purchase the land on the other side of my wall and create a straight line.  The path is not wide enough for a car by the way. 

I put a general enquiry in and got this reply from the council:

Thank you for your enquiry concerning the possible purchase of a strip of Council owned land adjoining you property. I would be grateful if you could provide a few more details i.e. area/dimensions of the land you are interested in acquiring, along with a rough plan of the area and also the intended usage.  Once I have received this information I will pass it to the relevant department for consideration and I will check our deeds to see if there are any restrictive covenants placed on the land

They have not said no and I'll obviously have to measure it and get back to them. Has anyone done anything like this? I'm imagining I'd pay both my own and the councils solicitor bill. Any idea of cost? I'm in the South of England.  

For context the whole field/meadow is kept wild and a couple of paths are m owned for people to walk their dogs. They do cut it all once a year but bramble and other bits are now covering some of it. The bit I'm after did have a tree with a tpo on it but the council took it down due to acer dieback. 

As you can also see it has a motor way behind it and a pilon (square bit). It's quite steep and small so not sure they could build on it unless they included the allotments who are behind some trees opposite my house. 

I was thinking of sending them the photo with a line through to show the area. Get it measured and take photos so they can see how overgrown it is. It is no where near the existing paths so no one uses it as such. I was going to say I wish to future proof my house in case I need a bed room downstairs and also in order to grow my own fruit and veg. Any other suggestions?  Any experiences or tips and hints much appreciated. 

Many thanks 

Brie

no experience and no good suggestions but a couple of thoughts....

the council won't care how overgrown it is.  Overgrown is the new "environmentally sound and good for bees" mentality. 

The other thing is are there likely to be objections to this becoming private land.  I'm thinking the dog walkers might be quite put out if Fido isn't allowed to do his business in the usual way.   Net result might be having to maintain a right of way across or behind the land you are after.  Behind would be the much better option in my mind.

good luck with it all.  It sounds like a great adventure!!!

TallGirl

Thank you good thoughts just took some actual pictures as you can see Fido usually stays on the mowed bit unless he wants to get tangled in bramble lol. 

Did a rough bit of measuring I recon 6 meter max widest point and long ways about 16 meters but really narrow at each end due to the shape. 

Grumpy_chap

I suspect that the Council will be concerned that your acquire the extra 6m strip and then get the idea to build a house in that land.  It becomes "death by 1000 cuts" to the green area.
Would you be able to accept a covenant that prevents that, or a less generous plot so that a whole new dwelling house is not viable?

SusieT

I think saying that you want to regularise the shape (without disadvantaging dog walkers) and to can grow your own vegetables (possibly share with neighbours) would go down well, and if you were to plant bee and butterfly friendly flowers along the fenceline that could help?
Ditto the post above re saying that you do not want to build on it and would be happy to have a covenant to that effect may help things as well.

ProDave

I would provide a marked up copy of your site plan showing the extent of the extra land you would like to buy.  Tell them you want to use it as additional garden, and hope to enjoy all the usual uses of a residential garden including the ability to construct any normal building allowed under permitted development.

I would expect any additional land to be sold with some form of covenant.  e.g. if you incorporated enough to square off that garden, there would probably be enough land to build a complete additional house.  I would expect there to be a covenant to prevent that.

There is clearly what appears to be an established footpath which is probably a right of way, so no point trying to include that in your purchase as it would still be a right of way you could not do anything with.

Section62

ProDave said:

There is clearly what appears to be an established footpath which is probably a right of way, so no point trying to include that in your purchase as it would still be a right of way you could not do anything with.

It doesn't appear on the Council's Public RoW map, so isn't currently by the looks of it.  That doesn't stop people making a RoW claim, or seeking protection of the land (e.g. as a village green).

The only right of way issue I could see as a possible significant issue is if National Grid have rights to use the land as a means of access to the pylon.  There's no obvious access route, and the gap in front of the OP's house appears to be one of the few wider points of access to the land.

Section62

TallGirl said:

I was going to say I wish to future proof my house in case I need a bed room downstairs and also in order to grow my own fruit and veg. Any other suggestions?  Any experiences or tips and hints much appreciated. 

I would suggest saying the least possible, e.g. "I wish to use the land to increase the size of my garden".

Embellishing the reason with stuff about growing vegetables or making provision for old age is a bit OTT and may make it look like you are trying a bit too hard to justify purchasing the land (the corollary of which is you thinking there would be a lot of objections to the sale).

Essentially the council just want to know whether you will use the land as a garden, or if you have some other use in mind such as a scrap yard, development plot, car park, retail unit etc etc.  This is to see whether the land has greater value (to you) than just as a residential garden, or if the use has nuisence value which could impact adversely on the council's remaining holding.

Bendy_House

The 'council' isn't stupid. Their Planning Dept will almost certainly know exactly how to deal with such a request.

They will/should look at it in a cool, legal, manner, and make their decision. If they consider that it could have an additional dwelling built on it, then they will take that into account, adding the necessary restrictions to prevent this - if that's their call. Hopefully, it would just retain your existing PDRs.

How strange the shape of the additional land that has already been bought, tho'. That's worrying, isn't it? I'd imagine there's a good reason for this, and - if so - it might scupper your plans.

Good luck - there is no 'obvious' reason that I can see for them to not agree to this. But, who knows what's hidden.

If they turn you down but don't give what you consider to be a valid reason, it might be worth approaching your local councillor for advice before taking it further - see if they can cast any light on it? The actual reason for refusal might be as trivial as them being so overloaded with work, they cannot be bothered to handle what they consider to be a minor case - so 'non'. Moi cynical?

Martico

Yeah, the shape of the extra bit you already have is odd. It's also pretty much in line with the boundary edge of your neighbours to the top of the map as we look. I'd imagine there was a reason for this, probably going back to when the council first sold the land to developers. I write from a basis of zero knowledge of this kind of thing, I just like shapes and patterns

user1977

Bendy_House said:

The 'council' isn't stupid. Their Planning Dept will almost certainly know exactly how to deal with such a request.

They will/should look at it in a cool, legal, manner, and make their decision. If they consider that it could have an additional dwelling built on it, then they will take that into account, adding the necessary restrictions to prevent this - if that's their call.

It would only be the planning department's call in relation to any planning application by the OP - the request to buy the land is going to be determined by a different department.