R (on the application of Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust and another) v Oxfordshire County Council [2010] EWHC 530 (Admin), [2010] All ER (D) 249 (Mar)
The following principles could be derived from the authorities concerning the correct approach to deciding whether a particular notice had rendered the use of a particular land contentious:
(i) the fundamental question was what the notice conveyed to the user; (ii) evidence of the actual response to the notice by the actual users was thus relevant to the question of actual knowledge and might also be relevant as to the putative knowledge of the reasonable user; (iii) the nature and content of the notice, and its effect, had to be examined in context; (iv) the notice should be read in a common sense and not legalistic way; and (v) if it was suggested that the owner should have done something more than erect the actual notice, whether in terms of a different notice or some other act, the court should consider whether anything more would have been proportionate to
