Land: Balancing competing economic and social interests

The recognition of land as an economic resource has never been in doubt, but land regulation and usage should not be confined to a functional examination through the narrow prism of economic benefit. Land use policy also embraces wider social ideals which both statute and courts have recognised, for example, through the protection afforded to town and village greens (TVGs). In the case of TVGs, they have been protected primarily for customary or, more recently, for ecological/environmental purposes rather than for some explicit economic justification. Yet the assertion that land used primarily for social purposes is devoid of any economic value is an oversimplification which may be challenged and, economic value and social benefit should not be considered as mutually exclusive ideals. Though the economic value of land designated for social usage may be a secondary consideration by contrast with land intended for strictly commercial or developmental purposes, it may be implied from the policy objectives of the Growth and Infrastructure Act 2013 (GIA 2013), as well as regulatory and judicial principles, that land utilised for social purposes may also derive economic benefits to a local community. For example, recreational access for the benefit of all users to England’s coast line through the creation of a national coastal path provides ancillary of an economic nature through tourism to the local community the paths serve . [First paragraph]