URL: https://tameside.moderngov.co.uk/ieDecisionDetails.aspx?ID=2832

Decision Maker: Strategic Director of Housing, Environment and Estates

Outcome: Recommendations Approved

Is Key Decision?: No

Is Callable In?: No

Purpose: This relates to Council land within a steeply sloping site which was formerly part of the site of Stamford Street Clinic. A third party is in possession of the Council’s land and has a presumed valid Possessory Title claim. The Council’s land is adjacent to the War Memorial to the west, the unnamed steeply sloping highway between Stamford Street and Trinity Street to the north, the River Tame to the south and private land to the east preventing access to Old Street.  The Council’s land is effectively land locked and therefore undevelopable. When the former NHS clinic closed, the site was acquired by a contractor who fenced off the land (including the Council’s land) and demolished the building in 2009. The Council has made no attempt to regularise matters within at least the last 10 years.  Even if the application for Possessory Title is opposed now, the application will still be approved as the developer can prove he has been in adverse possession of land adjacent to his own under the mistaken but reasonable belief that he is the owner of it; the exact line of the boundary with this adjacent land has not been determined and the land to which the application relates was registered more than a year prior to the date of the application.

Content:

Date of Decision: December 19, 2025