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The year 2012 marks the centenary of the death of Octavia Hill, an early activist of the Open Spaces Society.  Octavia became involved in the society in about 1875 shortly after her unsuccessful campaign to buy the fields between Swiss Cottage and Hampstead in west London.  She joined the committee of the society, urging it to enlarge its scope to include ‘the acquisition and dedication to the public of open spaces in or near London’.

The society was then known as the Commons Preservation Society, and its luminaries included George Shaw-Lefevre (later to become Lord Eversley), Sir Charles Dilke MP, Leslie Stephen and many other Liberal reformers.

Octavia Hill is well known for her advocacy for open spaces—‘open-air sitting rooms’ as she called them—but less so for her defence of public paths.  At the society’s annual meeting in 1888 she seconded a motion, proposed by Lord Thring, calling for the society to approve ‘the bill for the better protection of footpaths and roadside wastes as prepared by a committee of the society … and that the society be requested to act as the centre of advice for local footpath societies in relation to the subject’.

Octavia spoke of how the ‘little winding, quiet byways with all their beauty’ were vanishing, ‘closed by quarter sessions, the poor witnesses hardly daring to speak, the richer dividing the spoil, the public from a larger area hardly knowing of the decision which has for ever closed to them some lovely walk’.  She referred to the entrance to paths ‘concealed by judicious planting, lodge gate, or hidden doors’ or of a path ‘robbed of all its charm by the erection of high, black, pitched fences which … have robbed it of all its amenities’ becoming ‘unsafe as well as unpleasant.’ …

She said: ‘Take from a path the view of all but a narrow strip of sky, deprive it of the fresh air that blew across it, the view over adjacent field and you leave but a hollow mockery of a possession. … I think those little winding ways, that lead us on by hedgerow and over brooks, through scented meadows, and up grassy hill, away from dusty roads, and into the silent green of wood and field, are a common possession we ought to try to hand down undiminished in number and in beauty for those who are to follow.’

The motion, which was passed unanimously, and Octavia’s speech, indicate the society’s shift of emphasis from primarily protecting commons to embrace  public rights of way (in 1899 it amalgamated with the National Footpaths Preservation Society), and it has fought for paths, alongside commons and other open spaces, ever since.

Says our general secretary Kate Ashbrook: ‘We commemorate Octavia Hill on the centenary of her death, for her far-sightedness.  The words she spoke over a century ago still resonate today, when paths and spaces are at risk of being filched and diminished by moneyed landowners and developers.’

Octavia Hill was born on 3 December 1838 in Wisbech and died on 13 August 1912. Her first contact with the Commons Preservation Society was through Robert Hunter, our founder and secretary, and together they went on to found the National Trust in 1895.

We have called on communities throughout England to ‘get a green’ as part of the new neighbourhood planning system.

Ruddington village green, Notts. Photo: Chris Murden.

It is vital that local people identify those areas of land where they have enjoyed at least 20 years of informal recreation, before the land is threatened with development. Then they can apply to register them as greens and protect the land and their rights for the future. Once planning permission has been given it may be too late.

The new neighbourhood development plans provide a wonderful opportunity for people to think about how they use the land in their area and, if they believe they have land which qualifies as a green, to gather evidence of its use and submit an application to the county or unitary council to register it as a green.

Richard Webb and Kate Ashbrook unveil the plaque to celebrate the registration of Sugary Green, Dartmouth, as a town or village green.

Says Kate Ashbrook, our general secretary: ‘We can help you through the process. We urge you to start now. Make 2012 the Year of the Town and Village Green.

‘But the process is under threat,’ she warns. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, under pressure from developers, is reviewing the system for registering land as a green with a view to making it more difficult and restricted. So you need to get in now with applications based on good evidence.’

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On 1 January 2012 the Open Spaces Society gains company status, registered in England and Wales as a company limited by guarantee, number 7846516. This follows our special general meeting on 23 November where members voted unanimously that the society should become a company. The society will continue to be known as the Open Spaces Society. We remain a charity too, with the new number 1144840. We have registered our full title, the Commons, Open Spaces and Footpaths Preservation Society, as a dormant company.

In adopting the memorandum and articles of association, we have maintained as much as possible of our old constitution. The principal reason for the transfer to a company was significantly to reduce trustees’ personal liability.

We reproduce below the explanation from our chairman, Tim Crowther, at the special general meeting on 23 November.

‘Many years ago I worked for a government property agency. It was in the days when many such organisations had coats of arms. Nowadays they have acronyms and logos. Beneath the rampant beasts of my employer’s arms was the motto semper aliquid novi–translated rather freely as ‘always something new’. In case you are interested, this was an incomplete and out-of-context 2000-year-old quotation from Pliny the elder.

‘I have always thought this was a good maxim to adopt. I relish change when it is embraced positively. The OSS would not have survived for 146 years had it not changed with the times.

‘The core objectives of the society have remained intact over the years. It is the way in which these objectives are delivered that has continually been changing. The incorporation of the society is a significant milestone for us but in itself it doesn’t outwardly change anything. We shall remain a small, influential, campaigning organisation focused on what we do best.

‘One of the main reasons for incorporation is that it gives financial protection and reassurance (in the form of limited liability) to our trustees.

‘Incorporation also provides a real and appropriate opportunity and incentive for innovation and change. Change has never been faster, and it will never be slow again. The society has already embarked on that process of change. Shortly we shall have the results of the marketing exercise that we commissioned. This will provide ideas on how we can increase our membership, stimulate fund-raising, gain publicity and enhance our status. We are continually reviewing the governance of the society.

‘This county is moving towards becoming a truly networked nation. As a society, we must embrace these new technologies, by recognising the power of social media and all the powerful opportunities for online fund-raising. But let us not forget our existing loyal members who provide the platform for change.

‘And in the wider world it is improving the context in which we live that must be the underlying theme in what we do.’

We have responded robustly to an outburst from the Local Government Association today on new village greens.

Says Kate Ashbrook, our general secretary: ‘The LGA has not produced hard evidence to back its allegation that people are applying for village green status in order to block development.

‘The LGA implies that this happens frequently. In fact it is much more likely that, when developers threaten much-loved land, people realise that they have taken it for granted for too long, and want to secure their long-enjoyed rights there. They can do this by applying to register the land as a town or village green.

‘We deplore proposals by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, backed by the LGA, to introduce a character test, whereby only those greens which conform with a subjective view of a “traditional” green can be registered. Local people should be able to register any bit of land, however out-of-the-way or scruffy, where they have enjoyed 20 years of informal recreation, without being stopped or asking permission.

‘The LGA seems to assume that applications to register land occupied by beach huts or a car-park are false and vexatious—but local people can enjoy recreation around beach huts, and on a car-park when it is not being used for parking. It’s all a matter of fact and degree. These areas may be eligible for registration.

‘We consider that the ability to register any land where local people have accrued rights of recreation should be preserved. If planning permission has already been granted or the land identified for development in a local plan, there should be a period of grace to enable people to submit their evidence of use as a green.

‘However, we have long advocated improvements to the registration process which do not involve changes in the law. The LGA response to some extent chimes with our own proposals.

‘We have therefore written to ask the LGA for a meeting so that we can discuss our areas of agreement, and to see if we can jointly press for these improvements to the process,’ Kate concludes.

Kate Ashbrook, our general secretary, unveiled a plaque on Sugary Green, Dartmouth in south Devon on Friday 9 December, to celebrate registration of the land as a village green last June, and its protection from development.

Kate Ashbrook and Richard Webb unveiling the plaque

When the land near Castle Cove was threatened with major development in 2009, local publisher Richard Webb formed the Friends of Sugary Green and, with help from the Open Spaces Society and in particular our case officer, Nicola Hodgson, applied to Devon County Council to register it as a green. The landowner South Hams District Council objected but backed down after its legal arguments were challenged.

Said Kate Ashbrook: ‘I am immensely proud to unveil this plaque which records our joint success in saving this very special and much-loved spot. I congratulate the Friends on their vision and tenacity in securing this green.

‘Sugary Green is set in an outstanding landscape, here on the beautiful south Devon coast. It has been enjoyed since at least 1945 for a wide range of informal activities, from tobogganing and ball games, to blackberrying, barbeques and astronomy. It is a magnificent asset to the community as well as to the thousands of visitors to this popular area.

‘But we fear for the future of green spaces. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has recently consulted about changing the law for the registration of new greens. It suggests there should be a “character test” so that land which does not conform to the traditional, village-centre, chocolate-box type of green might not qualify. That test could have ruled out Sugary Green. The society is leading the campaign to rescue the law and ensure that it is not radically altered.

‘We urge the Friends of Sugary Green to join the crusade to save our town and village greens—and we hope that the people of Dartmouth will continue to enjoy informal recreation for evermore on the lovely Sugary Green,’ Kate concluded.

Carrington Moore Estates wants to build four houses next to Picket Mead Common at Murton, Swansea, with a driveway over the common and cabling underneath it. Last December Welsh ministers rejected appeals by the company against the refusal of permission for a similar application, but the developers are trying again to get consent.

We have objected because of the threat to common land. Says our general secretary, Kate Ashbrook: ‘We have repeatedly opposed plans by the developers to forge an accessway across the common. They seem never to learn that the public has the right to walk and ride over this land and that any development on or under it needs consent from Welsh ministers under section 194 of the Law of Property Act 1925.

‘This small common is precious to the community, a true gem. We shall fight any plans to damage it.’

We are delighted that the case for registering Yeadon Banks as a town green has prevailed in the Court of Appeal. The five-acre Yeadon Banks is a much-loved open space on the outskirts of Leeds.

On Friday (2 December) the Appeal Court rejected the arguments on behalf of the landowner, Leeds Group plc, that the landowner had been prejudiced by a change in the law for registering greens during the 20-year period during which local people had been exercising their rights, and that this breached the landowner’s right to the peaceful enjoyment of its land under the European Convention of Human Rights.

The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 section 98 changed the law on registering new greens so that after that date, the qualifying use had to be by a significant number of inhabitants of any locality or neighbourhood, for 20 years without being stopped or asking permission. Before that, the requirement was merely for the inhabitants of the locality to have used the land. The landowner argued that the 2000 Act postponed the operation of the amended definition of town and village greens to 20 years after its enactment (ie 2020).

The qualifying period for Yeadon Banks was 1984 to 2004.

The court considered that the arguments were hypothetical, and that it was unrealistic to assume that the landowner ‘was content to allow a significant number of the inhabitants of a neighbourhood to use his land for very many years because he was confident that their use was not a use by the inhabitants of a locality, and so could not ripen into a legal right’.

The judges did not consider that there was any breach of the human rights convention.

Says our general secretary, Kate Ashbrook: ‘We are highly relieved that this appeal has been dismissed. We too felt the arguments were hypothetical and that it was wrong to postpone the operation of the amended definition of greens in the 2000 Act until a full 20 years had run, ie until 2020.

‘We felt so strongly that Yeadon Banks should be registered that we gave a donation towards the cost of the appeal. We have supported the applicant, Doug Jones of Keep Yeadon Banks Green (KEYBAG), throughout the process. This is a special area of green space and we trust that it will now be secure.’

Chris Peat (a member of the society and clerk to Carlton Parish Council) organised a special celebration for the opening of a new definitive right of way on land between the villages of Carlton and Barton in the Beans, about ten miles west of Leicester.

Local landowner Brian Sutton cuts the tape to begin a celebratory walk along the new path

The new path links footpath S68 (on the well-known Leicestershire Round) with S69, thereby creating new circular routes.

The creation is part of a wider scheme in which other paths have been physically improved and stiles replaced by kissing-gates, thanks to the landowners, Leicestershire County Council, Carlton Parish Council, Shackerstone Parish Council and the Barton and Carlton Residents’ Action Group.

Said Chris: ‘The area around Market Bosworth offers many attractive circular walks with few stiles and good waymarking. The new path improves access to the countryside for locals and visitors to the area.’

A planning inspector, John Felgate, has rejected plans by Mr Mark Fowler to fly microlight aircraft from Bernwood Farm, Botolph Claydon in mid Bucks. Mr Fowler had appealed against Aylesbury Vale District Council’s refusal of consent in December 2010. The application was retrospective: Mr Fowler, the tenant of Bernwood Farm, was already flying aircraft there without consent.

We backed our member, the Botolph Claydon Quiet Society, in fighting the proposal because the planes shatter the peace of this tranquil area, and the runways cross, or pass close to, three public paths. One of these is the Bernwood Jubilee Way through the long-forgotten Bernwood Forest.

Mr Felgate agreed with the objectors that the aircraft ‘would result in unacceptable danger to footpath users’. The two grass runway-strips cut across two footpaths at right-angles, giving rise to ‘the potential for dangerous conflicts between aircraft and footpath users’. This danger was exacerbated by the geography, since the site straddles the crest of a pronounced ridge which limits the vision of both pilots and walkers.

Says Kate Ashbrook, our general secretary: ‘We are relieved that this unpleasant application has been so roundly rejected. At last those who live in this beautiful part of Buckinghamshire, and those who walk here, can enjoy the area in peace and quiet, free from the danger and noise of the buzzing, droning aircraft.’