To extend my garden onto public land?

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My neighbour a few doors down has done this.

Our gardens back onto a public footpath bordered by wide grass verges. My neighbour's garden extends on to part of the verge, with a fence around it to make it part of her garden.

She says it was like that when she bought the house, but reckons it's as simple as building the fence and waiting a few years, after which time the land becomes mine. Is that true or absolute nonsense? I've emailed the council planning department to ask, but haven't yet had a reply.

To be fair we have claimed 25 yards back into brambles of a woodland. Walled off veg patch now 😊

Anyone who thinks the council will argue the toss are mistaken in my recent experience. We have a land theft case on our street of council owned land and they're not arsed.

OP you would need to give your real name and address to the council if you wanted to know if the land would be available to buy. There may be pipes running through that land or other reasons why they wouldn’t sell it.
I looked into it many years ago but it turned out the council didn’t own the large verge of land at the back of my garden and didn’t know who did! (Weird as they cut the grass..) I just left it as the small garden was the least of my worries about living there and I ended up moving after a couple of years.
If you do email the council again, use your own (named) email and don’t mention the neighbours!

To be fair there is a long and quite illustrious history in Britain of morally reprehensible individuals appropriating common land and church property, and directly contributing to the erosion of rights of women, children and the working classes. A substantial swathe of the social and political issues we face today can be traced back to the placement of fences where they didn’t belong.

It’s theft, from the public purse. Hth.

This is one of the dumbest things I've read on here in a while.

No. You can't just steal PUBLIC LAND, that belongs to the PUBLIC and NOT YOU.

"the public" is not a legal entity. My dp is currently investigating the purchase of a random patch of grass next to his house. The land registry say at the moment no one actually owns it so he may be able to simply acquire it but he's doing it properly, legally, to avoid any issue on resale.

I think if you put a gate or opening from your garden into the bit you want, then start using it, planting it, maybe put up some temporary fence to keep chickens in, etc, no-one would be very bothered. And over time it would be seen as yours even if you didn't own it. So you'd get the benefit of the space without the ownership.

It really depends on the council . Where I live somebody a few roads away built a fence beside their house and ‘grabbed’ an area that was about 8’ wide and 20’ long . They installed the world’s most hideous fence and started taking down all the trees / bushes . I emailed the council - with photos and got an email back to say that an inspector would go and look and then got a further email saying they were not bothered .

About 25 years ago my parents applied to the council to extend their garden into what had been a school field, but the school had relocated a year before. The council said they couldn’t buy it because it was protected play space. About 3 years later the council sold it to developers to build more houses. 🤔

No it doesn't!
After 10/12 years (reg/unreg land) someone who is claiming adverse possession can apply to become the registered owner of the land as long as it's backed up with plenty of evidence that the possession has been in place that long

If they apply the actual owner is contacted to agree or disagree with the possession and all they have to do is say 'err no'

The likelihood is that if they want to sell it will be a massive drawback for buyers, and if buyers are willing to overlook the encroachment they will probably be asked to reinstate the fence.

Either way I'm sure someone will notice before that....

A whole row of houses have done this not too far from me (actually I think 3 out of 16 hasn't). Now all walkers have to cut through the local bowls club ground to carry on with the public footpath much to the bowlers annoyance. I'm baffled that the council hasn't done anything about it and made them all reinstate their original boundary lines. It looks like some have spent thousands on their new ish garden areas.

People do acquire bits of public land, especially those who know how to do it (I’m thinking of the Parish council planning guy extending his garden). I’ve seen others take down hedges and build fences outside the hedge line on the public land side gaining space in their driveways/garden and making paths narrower.

My next door neighbour wanted us all to move our fences back so we could acquire some public land (so it wouldn’t look obvious if we all did it) but we said no.

My old boss at work gloated that every year he moved his fence back onto Forestry Commision land so he could have more land for his horses.

There are cheeky land-grabbers everywhere!!

My ex in laws did this and extended their garden. It was a triangular strip of land adjacent to their house.

They did it over 20 years ago and claimed adverse possession after about 15 years 🤷‍♀️ I don’t think the council even defended it!

Technically, even if you gain ownership, you would still need planning permission to change the use of the land to residential garden.

We had this situation, gardens backing onto community land. Over the years some of the houses had added quite big chunks of this land onto their gardens. A while ago the council realised what had happened and the original boundaries have been re-established. Our house wasn't affected, no one who owned our property in the past had nicked any, some houses had literally added paddocks to keep horses in at the back. It should have been clear to anyone buying that this land was not included on the land registry boundaries.

We also have land at the front that the driveways cross, that theoretically belongs to someone, but who seems to be lost in the mist of time. Mostly people just cut the grass on that bit to keep it tidy.

Why are you asking for help to steal?

So because they messed you about it was ok to steal from them?

This is a great idea.

Report her to the council. Verges are the property of the council as they serve a highway purpose- giving people safe areas to walk . She has no right to that lane and has stolen it from the community. My sisters neighbour tried to do this- her house was on a National speed limit road and the verge was the only area off the road she could walk between her off road car parking space and her house.