Being polite to golfers doesn't mean giving up rights. Photo: nsaplayer CC-BY-ND-2.0

Five top judges today struck a blow for the rights of courteous walkers.

The Supreme Court judges ordered that land used by locals in Redcar, Teesside, should be registered as a green, allowing continued access for walking and recreation. A previous legal judgement had denied them access because walkers had habitually shown courtesy to golfers using the area, by waiting until they played their shots.

The unanimous verdict of Britain’s highest court overturned the earlier High Court and Court of Appeal rulings that, in showing civility to golfers, the walkers had not exercised their rights ‘freely’.

The judgement is the latest in a series of cases involving Coatham Common, which is also home to Cleveland Golf Club. The Open Spaces Society supported Kevin Lewis and other residents who asserted that they had used the land freely for at least 20 years – the qualifying period for land to be registered as a green. They had not been stopped or had to ask permission.

But the local authority refused to register the land, which borders the estuarial sand dunes, as a town or village green.

Mr Lewis appealed against Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council’s decision, to the High Court in 2008 and to the Court of Appeal a year later.  Both appeals were dismissed, with the fact that walkers had given way to golfers the key factor. The courts said this fact demonstrated local people did not use the land ‘as of right’.

However, the walkers were victorious in the Supreme Court today, with Lord Walker, the lead judge, saying: “I have great difficulty in seeing how a reasonable owner would have concluded that the residents were not asserting a right to take recreation on the disputed land, simply because they normally showed civility towards members of the golf club who were out playing golf.

“It is not as if the residents took to their heels and vacated the land whenever they saw a golfer. They simply acted with courtesy and common sense.”

The council had also argued that the landowner would be disadvantaged, with local people having more rights over the land than before the case, but the judges dismissed the claim, saying that registration of land as a green would be unlikely to result in a change in its use by local inhabitants.

The council must now register the land as a green, protecting it from development.

Kate Ashbrook, general secretary of the Open Spaces Society, said: ‘This monumental decision clarifies the law on registering land as new greens. The Supreme Court has said beyond all doubt that use of land as a green can coexist with the landowner’s activities.

“In the past, applications have been rejected merely because the local people were civil and deferred to the use by the landowner – whether he was making hay or playing golf.  We considered it unfair that people should be penalised for being polite, but it was proving a major problem for people wishing to record their recreational rights by registering land as a green.”

Lord Hope also suggested that the forthcoming review of village greens by the Government should look at the consequences of registration as revealed by the developing case law as well as how the registration system itself is working.