Clause15
Commons Bill [Lords]
11:30 am
Jim Knight (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Rural Affairs, Landscape and Biodiversity), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; South Dorset, Labour)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for offering methe opportunity. A judicial decision on the meaning of curtilage wasgiven in the Court of Appeal in 2000. He will recall, being a representative of Nottinghamshire, that the case was Skerritts of NottinghamLtd v. Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and theRegions. The court held that land is considered to be within thecurtilage if it is part and parcel of the principal building or otherstructure. Land is within the curtilage if it is owned and enjoyed withthe principal building and can be regarded as ancillary to it. It is aquestion of fact and degree in each case, and examples include a yard,basement area, passageway, driveway and garden, which are intrinsicallypart and parcel of the house. If houses have been built on one part ofa larger area of land that has been used as a green, one would not expect the whole ofthe land to be regarded as the curtilage of the houses. If such houseshad physical enclosures around them to create their own space, theircurtilages might well be taken to be defined by those enclosures, butthose curtilages would not extend to the rest of the land. I hope thatthat is helpful to my hon. Friend.
Several hon. Membersrose—