My Lords, the aim of this new clause is to apply the power to make public spaces protection orders to bodies which are responsible for the custody of public open spaces under private Acts. The amendment is prompted by the position of the City of London Corporation. I probably do not need to record for your Lordships the provenance of my association with the City in the other place. In addition to its responsibilities within the City, the corporation acts under a variety of private Acts and related instruments as custodian for a range of well known public open spaces: Hampstead Heath, Burnham Beeches and Epping Forest are prominent examples.
I was born in Hampstead, where my home address persisted until I was 29, before shifting to Highgate for a further 14 years. I therefore know Hampstead Heath backwards under both the LCC and the GLC, prior to the City of London Corporation inheriting the responsibility for Hampstead Heath. I also confess to your Lordships to have form as the sponsor of City of London Bills involving its open spaces, particularly Epping Forest.
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The problems that arise in the public open spaces for which the City is responsible are no different in kind from those encountered in those which local authorities manage. The case for public spaces protection orders provided for by Chapter 2 of Part 4 of the Bill is therefore the same. The control of dogs is a particular feature of the City’s open spaces around London, but no doubt that feature is shared by many. The Bill recognises this commonality by making the power to make orders generally applicable to public spaces at the suit of the local authority for the area, including those governed by private Acts by agreement with those responsible for them. However, unlike the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005, which introduced a similar, more limited, regime to the one that we are considering, and is applicable to the control of dogs, there is no provision in the Bill to enable the custodians of public spaces governed by private Acts to make such orders.
There are, however, good reasons why the principle applied in the 2005 Act is appropriate for public spaces protection orders. Those responsible for public open spaces under private Acts of Parliament also have responsibility for enforcing the by-laws made under those Acts; the open spaces may cross local authority boundaries—many of those for which the City is responsible do so—and it makes practical sense to have an order covering the open space as a whole rather than a patchwork with different enforcing authorities and the practical evidential problems of demarcation near boundaries; and in relation to the
open spaces managed by the City, such an order will relieve public expenditure because the cost of custodianship, including any public spaces protection orders, will be met from private funds.
The proposed new clause seeks essentially to apply the same regime for public spaces protection orders as set out in Chapter 2 of Part 4 of the Bill. The application depends on a designation being made by the Secretary of State under subsection (1) of the new clause. The new clause does not affect the entitlement of the local authority for the area in which the open space is located to make its own public spaces protection order. If the local authority does so, any order made by the custodian of the open space ceases to have effect under subsection (6). In other words, the local authority has precedence if it wishes to regulate the open space itself, although, as I have said, that eventuality would not seem to be a particularly attractive practical option. Any custodian of a public space—“statutory custodian” in the terminology of the proposed new clause—wishing to make a public spaces protection order must undertake the same consultation procedure as is applied generally by the Bill to others seeking to make an order. In addition, subsection (5) requires the custodian to consult the local authority for the area in which the open space is located.
I hope that Lordships feel that this new clause is a practical and realistic way to address open spaces governed under statute by bodies other than local authorities. I remark in the presence of the government Whip on the Front Bench that three years of my life were partly spent watching my eldest son with an Oxford blue running against Cambridge cross-country over Wimbledon Common—in passing, he was always a member of the winning team. I therefore also hope that the Minister will feel able to respond positively. I beg to move.