Aerial Evidence in ‘Village Green’ Dispute

Aerial images dating back more than 20 years have been used to resolve a dispute in the English seaside town of Broadstairs, UK. Local residents had campaigned to have an area of wooded land close to the cricket club adopted as a village green. However, using aerial photographs from the OldAerialPhotos archive, an experienced photographic interpreter was able to dispute the claim by demonstrating insufficient evidence of use.

Bluesky supplied the accurately dated historic aerial photography from its OldAerialPhotos archive providing factual and unbiased evidence for further investigation by Bud Young of the Airphoto Interpretation practice.
 
Working on behalf of the owners of the two plots of contended land, Young presented evidence to the Planning Inspector, appointed by Kent County Council, at a Public Inquiry. A Chartered Landscape Architect and photographic interpreter with more than 40 years’ experience of land use, Young was able to show, using the historic images, dense unusable woodland on one site and scarce evidence of path lines or other signs of public use that would be exhibited if the claim was valid. While other evidence came from documents and those who claimed to know the site, invaluable detail was derived from the aerial images.
 
Mr Young concluded, "In this instance we were able to secure a positive outcome for our clients using seven sets of photography. Ideally one would wish to find that a site has been photographed every year but that is a rarity, although one recent case used 16 year dates, most from OldAerialPhotos."