News

We have published Finding Common Ground, the first-ever guide to how to recognise and take account of local-community interests in common land. The work was commissioned by Natural England, the government’s adviser on the natural environment. Read it here
Says Kate Ashbrook, our general secretary (who wrote the report with Nicola Hodgson, its case [...]

The Guardian has launched its Piece-by-piece campaign. The aim is to publicise threatened places and spaces and to enable local activists to exchange information and advice, and to build a powerful alliance against developments which threaten our natural environment and people’s enjoyment of it.
Click to add your campaign to Piece-by-piece.

We are delighted that Cornwall Council’s planning committee has rejected the application for 20 wind turbines at Davidstow Wood, adjoining Bodmin Moor, at its meeting on 22 July.
Says Kate Ashbrook, our general secretary: ‘We opposed the application because of the disastrous effect these monstrous turbines and their associated development would have on the beautiful, [...]

The Environment Secretary, Caroline Spelman, has announced that she intends to abolish the Commons Commissioners (22 July).
We are sad to see the passing of the Commons Commissioners, who played an important role in determining the common-land maps of today, a band of erudite lawyers who travelled the length and breadth of England and Wales to [...]

England’s conservation organisations have joined forces to paint a grim picture of a countryside starved of money by budget cuts.
On the 30th anniversary of the Wildlife and Countryside Link, of which the Open Spaces Society is a member, its members have issued an unprecedented warning about what the future would hold should the Government slash [...]

‘The governments in England and Wales should recognise that common land matters.’ So declared Paul Clayden, our vice-president, who chaired our annual general meeting on 6 July.

‘Commons are the secret gems in our landscape, ancient places which have remained largely unchanged through history. We are dismayed that the Westminster government is so dilatory [...]

The national seminar on common land and town and village greens on 1 July, at the University of Gloucester, rejected the notion of a wholesale review of the laws for the registration of new greens.
Kate Ashbrook, general secretary of the Open Spaces Society, proposed the motion This seminar believes that little change is needed to [...]

We are calling on the government to recognise in its spending review the value to the nation of green spaces, lovely places and public paths and access.
Our general secretary, Kate Ashbrook, was speaking at an open day at Netley Abbey, Hampshire, organised by the Bursledon rights of Way and Amenities Preservation Group and opened by [...]

The eighth national seminar on common land and town and village greens organised by the Countryside and Community Research Institute will be on Thursday 1 July at the University of Gloucestershire’s Park Campus in Cheltenham.
It will focus on best practice in the management and protection of commons and greens. Our general secretary and case officer [...]

TruGreen, the world’s largest professional lawn care company, together with The Sunday Telegraph, Life, has named Cavendish Village Green in Suffolk the liveliest in the country.
Entrants were invited to send a picture and 50 words on why they thought their nominated village green was the liveliest in the country to the judges at TruGreen and [...]