Commentary on the Sections Supplementary Section 130: Application to internal waters
202.At present, the land which can be registered under the Land Registration Act 1925 is, in practice, determined by reference to local government administrative areas. This means the counties of England or Wales, Greater London and the Isles of Scilly. Although the seaward limit of a county (or administrative area) is generally the low water mark, there are tidal waters which are within the body of a county, as (for example) where there is an estuary. The county boundary is at the seaward limit of that estuary as determined by the Ordnance Survey. The Act applies, by virtue of paragraph (a) of this section, to land covered by internal waters which are within the administrative area of England or Wales. This reproduces the present position.
203.Paragraph (b), however, extends the scope of the land that may be registered to land covered by internal waters which are adjacent to England or Wales and which are specified for the purpose by order made by the Lord Chancellor. This power to extend registration of title to land under adjacent internal waters would enable the Crown Estate to register submarine land not only within the body of a county, but under waters on the landward side of the baselines, fixed in accordance with Article 4 of the Convention on the Territorial Sea of 1958. These baselines are employed for the purposes of defining the territorial limits of the United Kingdom. Registration of such lands would protect them against encroachments by adverse possessors who might (for example) construct pipelines or other works within internal waters but outside the body of a county.