Vehicular access across Common Land and Town or Village Greens

Common land

You may be committing an offence if you drive across common land to access your property without having a legal right to do so. An offence may arise if you drive

without lawful authority on most urban commons (known as ‘section 193 commons’ here ), or
without lawful authority on any other common, except within 15 yards of a road in order to park on the common.

You can acquire lawful authority to drive over common land by prescription or if you are granted an easement.

Click here to visit our Common Land page to browse relevant resources on this subject.

Town and Village Greens

You may be committing an offence if you drive across a town or village green (TVG) to access your property without having a legal right to do so.

You may be able to acquire a permanent right to drive over a TVG to your property by prescription or if you are granted an easement.

If, however, vehicle access will interrupt recreation or cause damage to the TVG, you may be unable to obtain a right by prescription or an easement as driving across the land would be a criminal offence. See here.

You can continue to drive your vehicle over the TVG if a vehicular access existed before the land became a TVG.

Click here to visit our Village Green page to browse relevant resources on this subject.

Further Resources

Vehicular access across Common land and Town and Village greens

The archived Defra guidance on vehicular access on common land and TVGs is here

The current Defra guidance on vehicular access on common land and TVGs here

Management and Protection of Town and Village greens

Defra guidance on management of TVGs is here

Further resources about Commons and Town and Village Greens

Part 1 of the Commons Act 2006: getting land onto or off the commons and greens registers
This fact sheet covers the following information about Part 1 of the Commons Act 2006: getting land onto or off the commons and greens registers.
Registered common land and highways
Registered common land may also be part of a public highway, and evidence that land is registered common land or part of a highway is of little or no value in demonstrating that the land is not the other.
A problem solved
Read some of the Open Spaces Society's advice and case studies relating to problems when protecting land.
How to take action against unlawful encroachments and works
This fact sheet tells you how to protect your common from unlawful encroachments and works in England.
Town and village greens
An introduction to why we campaign to protect land as town and village greens.
Guidance on making a successful green application
These guidance notes have kindly been prepared by The Friends of Coombe Wood, who successfully registered a green in 2013.

Buildings, fences and other works on common land in England and Wales
A practical guide for those wishing to carry out a lawful operation on a common and those wanting to defend a common against unlawful or undesirable operations.
Our Common Land
This seventh edition has been revised and updated to include the many changes in the law which have taken place
Registration of a town or village green
A quick guide to the voluntary registration of town or village greens
Defra guidance registration of land as a town or village green
Defra's guidance notes for the completion of an application for the registration of land as a town or village green outside the pioneer implementation areas i.e. when using Form 44.
Court cases on town & village greens
We publish a commentary about most decisions in the courts about town and village registration cases. You can find a list of these cases here together with a hyperlink to our commentary or (where there is none) a report of the case on the website for the British and Irish Legal Information Institute.

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