Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of changes to the legal framework governing land held in trust for community recreation, public amenity or open space purposes on (a) the protections applying to such land and (b) the role of local town and parish councils in decisions relating to its future use.

Local authorities may hold public open space subject to a statutory trust or public recreation under section 10 of the Open Spaces Act 1906 and section 164 of the Public Health Act 1875.The disposal or appropriation of such land is governed by the Local Government Act 1972 (LGA 1972), which requires local authorities to comply with the statutory advertisement procedures and consider any objections before a statutory trust can be released.

The amendment to the LGA 1972 in relation to statutory trusts by the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026 does not reduce those protections but it closes a gap in the law which was exposed by the Supreme Court case of R (Day) v Shropshire Council. This gap in the law had meant that if these procedures were not followed by the local authority, there would be no mechanism, whether under the LGA 1972 or otherwise, by which the statutory trust can be released.

This amendment to empower the Secretary of State to discharge the trust by way of a Statutory Trust Discharge Order (STDO) is carefully targeted, only applying where a local authority failed to comply with the advertisement requirements under the LGA 1972. In such situations and where the freeholder or long leaseholder of the land applies to the Secretary of State for the trust to be discharged, interested parties including town and parish council can make representations under the new regime. If the local authority has complied with its statutory advertising requirements, town and parish councils would have had the opportunity to make representations through the existing LGA 1972 advertising procedures.

We are also undertaking a review of the legislative protections for public recreational green spaces and have committed not to use the STDO power until that review has been completed. We will invite national representative organisations for parish and town councils to contribute their views and expertise as part of the review.