Picking fruit that overhangs public property Today I was eating plums from a tree growing on private property, which I picked from branches overhanging the public highway. A passing cyclist said &quot;That is scrumping&quot; and I replied &quot;Not on a public highway&quot;. I looked it up. The Royal Horticultural Society advice is a contradiction: Can I cut off overhanging branches? Yes, provided it is done without trespassing onto the other person’s property. Do I have to get permission from my neighbour or give them notice to cut off the overhanging branches? No. But it also says Can I pick and keep the fruit from overhanging branches? No, not without permission from the owner. Can I collect windfalls from a neighbour’s tree that overhangs my garden? No, not without their permission. Windfall fruit still belongs to the owner. So if I cut off the whole branch, that would be legal? BBC's Newsnight explored the topic, and consulted some 'experts'. Urban foraging - ethical? . . . They were unanimous: picking fruit that overhangs a public right of way is not scrumping, it is decidedly ethical and almost certainly legal. yet after further investigations, they conclude from the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers that is is not legal: I was shocked to find that the law on picking fruit from overhanging branches could not be clearer: “A neighbour has no legal right to any fruit on overhanging branches.” But I am not a neighbour: I was a passer-by on public property. One comment under the BBC's story says Clearly the law has changed since medieval common law: the phrase &quot;by hook or by crook&quot; refers to a pilgrim's right to graze food that overhangs their route. If it was within said reach of the path, it could be gathered. So was it once a right to take such fruit, and when did the law change? Edit The plum tree is part of the hedgerow bordering the property (in a semi-rural location), rather than in a garden or orchard. I don't know if that classifies it as wild, but it is not a cultivated variety, as the fruits are quite small.
This is covered by Sections 1 to 6 of the Theft Act 1968. A person is guilty of theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it. Each relevant word is then dealt with. Dishonestly does not apply in the circumstance where you have in law the right to deprive the other of it. Here, you have no right: the fruit's owner has every right to the fruit he owns. You have no right just to come along and take it. A right to deprive the other of something would be relevant where he had misappropriated it from you. Appropriation is any assumption by a person of the rights of an owner. Here, you are assuming the rights of the owner by taking the fruit. Property is fairly self-explanatory. Everything except land is property. Belonging to another: &quot;Property shall be regarded as belonging to any person having possession or control of it, or having in it any proprietary right or interest.&quot; Here, the owner of the tree has possession and control and a proprietary right and interest. Permanently depriving means that you treat the thing [fruit in this case] as your own to dispose of regardless of the other’s rights. All of these apply in your case of taking fruit from a tree owned and grown by someone else. There is an exception, which may be relevant to the &quot;by hook or by crook&quot; quote: A person who picks mushrooms growing wild on any land, or who picks flowers, fruit or foliage from a plant growing wild on any land, does not (although not in possession of the land) steal what he picks, unless he does it for reward or for sale or other commercial purpose. But this doesn't apply where the tree is not growing wild. It is generally held that you can cut off foliage or whatever which is overhanging your land — I can't find a reference specifically, but I expect it's to do with nuisance and free enjoyment of your own land — but the severed parts and any fruit on them are still the property of their owner, and you can't deprive him of them permanently. Public land isn't yours, so you can't cut off branches overhanging it: the public authority can. Even there, they must give them back to the owner. The 1968 Act repeals a number of prior Acts (all the way back to the First Statute of Westminster in 1265), but I can't see anything relevant to the restriction of common law. If what you quote as common law still applied in 1968, it was that Act which restricted it to wild fruit (as opposed to fruit overhanging public land). It's quite likely that the common law was simply codified and made unambiguous than it was deliberately restricted.
To answer the question in your title: Yes, local authorities require planning permission. However, the question in your question is different. Removing a bus shelter or a lay-by probably wouldn't require planning permission if it was done by Tesco's in their car park - so the local authority doesn't require it either. There may be a requirement for consultation on such changes, but when Douglas Adams referred to It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard'. he was only half joking. Finally, it is worth pointing out that the bus shelter and lay-by are "roads", so if you don't live in a unitary authority would be handled by the County Council (or equivalent), whereas Planning is the responsibility of the District/Town/City Council.
There is no general rule about ownership: one parking lot I know is owned by the city, another is owned by the company that operates the mall, and in a third case it is owned by a third party who doesn't operate the mall. Either way, the owner of the parking lot has the property right to limit how it is used, and their agents (security guards, for example) can request that you refrain from skateboarding. They can evict you; they may not have the legal authority to physically toss you off the property, but they can probably perform a citizen's arrest for trespassing. None of this depends on how many cars are in the parking lot. It is more likely that a governmentally-owned parking lot will have a corresponding law restricting its use (whereas in the case of a private parking lot, restrictions center around general property law and the law of trespass).
It depends on whether &quot;person&quot; means &quot;owner&quot; If Bob is liable, it's not under the Impounding Act of 1955. In that Act, the occupier of land is allowed, but not required to impound trespassing animals. This is made clear in s 21 of the Act, which says &quot;the occupier...may seize and impound any stock trespassing on the land.&quot; A quick search finds no sections of the Act requiring an occupier to impound trespassing cattle. So it seems Bob is free to send the cattle on their way, at least under the Impounding Act. However, liability for cattle and cars is also covered by the &quot;Animals Law Reform Act of 1989.&quot; The two subsections of &quot;Section 5&quot; of that Act appear to broaden the class of people who could be held liable for damage “caused by an animal straying onto a highway.” Neither subsection explicitly mentions the owner. Instead, both talk about the &quot;person&quot; who is liable. The first, s 5(1) says the part of the common law that “excludes or restricts” “the duty that a person might owe to others to take reasonable care” to prevent damage no longer applies in New Zealand. The second, s 5(2), says a court must determine &quot;whether a person is liable...for damage caused by an animal straying onto a particular highway...&quot; Given that Impounding Act explicitly says &quot;owner&quot; not &quot;person,&quot; common sense suggests the use of the word &quot;person&quot; rather than &quot;owner&quot; in the Animals Law Act of 1989 means that Act allows others besides the owner to be held liable for damages. Whether New Zealand courts agree, and whether they have interpreted the “Animal Laws Act” in a way that would include Bob is a matter of fact that can only be answered by someone who knows New Zealand law. Added: Something fun to read Law professor Robert Ellickson studied how people actually resolve disputes over wandering cattle in Shasta county in northern California. There's a readable summary of what he found here. (The title of his book, &quot;Order without law,&quot; sums up his main finding -- there are rules that are enforced, but those rules have little to do with the formal law or law enforcement.)
In the U.S., the common way to address this would be called a servitude among academics and legal scholars, although it would typically be titled either an &quot;easement&quot;, or more likely a &quot;covenant&quot; (which is the customary name at common law for a promise that runs with the land). It would typically be reduced to writing and executed by both parties and recorded with the same formalities as a deed (i.e. it would typically be signed and acknowledged before a notary public, would contain a legal description, and would be coded with both parties in the grantee-grantor index). In New Zealand, I suspect that the process would be similar. One complication in New Zealand that might make the formalities different is that, New Zealand has a title certificate based system of real property recording called a Torrens Title system which it adopted in 1870, rather than the less formally structured race-notice recording system that, in principle, allows almost anything to be recorded without requiring that it fit in a particular box of types of documents that are permitted. Since 2017, in New Zealand, valid legal interests in law do not arise unless they are recorded. Since 2017, the New Zealand system's official copies are also now entirely electronic. Covenants are governed by Sections 240-250 of the Land Transfer Title Act of 2017 and seem to correspond to the kind of contract described in the question.
The fire department is entirely within its rights, which are the same as any other property owner. The fact that property is owned by a governmental body does not mean that members of the public can't be excluded that property. Some governmental property is public, but lots of it is private, and this would usually include most parts of fire department property. As long as you have not been denied any access to a public road by this fence, there is nothing improper about it. Anyone can walk through their parking lot, park their car there, meet friends, whatever, This is almost surely inaccurate. The fire department does not have to allow members of the public to have any access to their property and probably would demand that most of the uses you describe stop if they interfered in any way with the performance of its duties.
40km/h There is no ambiguity. The speed limit on the through road is clear and the speed limit on the side road is irrelevant. The fact that Bob may be legitimately unaware that this is the speed limit doesn’t matter either. If you want to ask if Bob has a defence if issued with an infringement notice, please feel free to post a new question.
Much of "the woods" is owned by the US government, where your chances of any degree of success are highly variable. It is extremely unlikely that you can get away with it at all on a military base or in a national park. You may be able to get away with it for longer on Forest Service land (legally speaking, you're supposed to move along after 14 days), but if you're looking for a permanent legal claim to the land, that will not happen without an act of Congress. If public domain land has valuable minerals which you exploit, you may be able to chop down trees and build a cabin, but until Congress lifts the moratorium on mining claims patents, you cannot gain title to the land. (Public domain land is land not set aside for a specific purpose, such as a national park or wilderness area). Another possibility is to seize the land through adverse possession, as long as you satisfy the requirements for such an action in the state in question. Chopping down trees and building a cabin probably satisfy the requirements of actual possession, openness and notoriety. You would have to continuously live there for 5-30 years, depending on state, and have to have exclusive use of the land. If you get found and the owner tells you to leave (whether or not they get a court order), or if they say "I'll let you stay for a while", or they do a bit of landscaping, then you can't take the land (or, the clock restarts). There are a number of state-specific quirks such as whether you have to believe that the land is actually yours. Also, you can't dispossess a government. At some point, you will have to deal with the county, since you built the cabin without a permit.