Ownership of road verges — Commons commissioner decided road verges part of highway and not registrable as common land — Encroachments by defendant and others — Whether plaintiff can establish road verges are not part of highway in proceedings outside Commons Registration Act 1965 — Plaintiff subject to issue estoppel
The plaintiffs manage and turn to account land and other property known as the Crown Estate. Pursuant to the Commons Registration Act 1965, the plaintiffs in earlier proceedings sought to register land in the Royal Manor of Portland, Dorset. On March 17 1977 the Chief Commons Commissioner decided that certain road verges within the manor formed part of the highway, were not within the definition of common land in section 22 of the 1965 Act and were not registrable under section 1. The road verges were removed from the register.
In the present proceedings the plaintiffs alleged that the defendant county council and others had encroached or had allowed encroachments on road verges in their ownership and that by reason of the decision of the Chief Commons Commissioner the defendant asserted that the plaintiffs were estopped from denying that the road verges were part of the highway. On a preliminary issue, the question was whether by reason of the Chief Commons Commissioner’s decision the plaintiffs were estopped from asserting as against the defendant that the road verges the subject of that decision are not part of the highway.
