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We have launched our first Open Space Award.

The society is inviting applicants who can demonstrate an activity that protects, increases, enhances and champions common land, town and village greens, open spaces and public paths in England and Wales, and the public’s right to enjoy them.

Details are on our website here or phone 01491 573535.

Applications must be submitted by 31 January 2012. A national panel of judges will make a shortlist and visit those sites. The winning project will be announced at the society’s AGM on 10 July.

Jean Macdonald, the society’s vice-chairman, said: ‘We want to hear about the good things people are doing which support our aims of protecting, increasing, enhancing and championing open spaces and public paths anywhere in England or Wales.

‘If you’ve got a good story to tell, whether it’s yours or someone else’s, why not submit a proposal? You may have created or improved a path or an open space, or saved it from destruction. We hear so many horror stories about open spaces being developed and paths being gated or lost, but we know that there are lots of good things happening too. It would be great to be able to publicise your successes and show what can be done.’

We are relieved that Chorleywood Parish Council has withdrawn its application for fencing on the lovely Chorleywood Common in Hertfordshire.

'Inviting' Chorleywood Common

The council had applied to the Secretary of State for Environment for consent, under section 38 of the Commons Act 2006, to erect 1,152 metres of permanent fencing and 352 metres of temporary fencing, enclosing 7.5 hectares on Larks Meadow adjoining Dog Kennel Lane. The council said it needed the fencing to enable the land to be grazed by cattle to increase the diversity of the flora and fauna. However, the council went ahead and erected some of the fencing before it sought consent.

We were among the many objectors to the plan.

Chorleywood Common with temporary fencing

Says Chris Beney, our Hertfordshire correspondent: ‘We are relieved that Chorleywood Parish Council has seen sense and withdrawn the application. The common is much more inviting now that much of the unlawful fencing has been removed.

‘We objected because the fencing would be an eyesore and a severe impediment to people exercising their rights to enjoy the common on foot and horseback. Larks Meadow is really good recreational land and its use for grazing would conflict with people’s enjoyment of it. Not surprisingly, many horse-riders objected too.

‘Now that the council has withdrawn the application it has cleared the air. We are willing to discuss with the council the options for managing the common in the interests of all,’ Chris concludes.

We have objected to an application from Mr James Metcalf of Wakefield to site 58 polytunnels and associated works next to Metcalfe Lane, Osbaldwick. The society has sent an objection to the City of York Council, the planning authority.

We are concerned about the adverse effect of the proposal on people’s enjoyment of Metcalfe Lane which adjoins the site.

Metcalfe Lane is enjoyed by walkers, riders and cyclists and the increased traffic on the lane, as a result of the development, will not only have a severe effect on people’s quiet enjoyment of this route but will also put them at risk.

Furthermore the development is in open countryside. These fields are an important pocket of open land close to the boundary of York City and will result in the further encroachment out into the country.

We consider that the development is inappropriate in the green belt and that the polytunnels will be a severe eyesore.

We have objected to an application from Wortham & Burgate Parish Council to construct a tarmac car-park on Long Green Common, Wortham in Suffolk. The council has applied for the consent of the Secretary of State for Environment for works on common land, under section 38 of the Commons Act 2006.

The tarmac surface will be an eyesore on this lovely green. It will formalise and suburbanise it. We do not believe it will stop people from parking elsewhere on the green, and it will be an ugly intrusion.

The public has the right to walk and ride over the whole area, and the car park will intrude on that right.

With other local objectors, we have urged the environment secretary to reject this application.

We are opposing plans which would suburbanise the small rural community of Trevone, near Padstow on the north coast of Cornwall. An application from First Step Homes to erect 15 dwellings at Trevone Farm comes before the planning committee on 9 November.

This development will be an eyesore, a suburban excrescence in open country.

There is a popular public footpath running alongside the site, where walkers can enjoy a feeling of peace and freedom in open country, as is appropriate in a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. There is a severe risk that the development would lead to the path being fenced in on both sides, making it unpleasant and claustrophobic for walkers.

At present walkers have lovely open views from this path but if the development goes ahead they will be looking at rows of houses.

The plans conflict with the policies for the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and the Local Plan, among others. This is the wrong place for this development.

We are pleased that Community Windpower Ltd has withdrawn its application for 20 wind turbines on land adjoining the peaks of Rough Tor and Brown Willy, near Davidstow Wood on Cornwall’s Bodmin Moor. But we are worried that the company has threatened to submit a further application soon.

Cornwall County Council’s planning committee rejected the application for 20 turbines below Rough Tor, and the company’s appeal was set for a public inquiry next month. Then the company withdrew the application.

While we are relieved that Community Windpower has withdrawn its application, we fear it will soon submit another. This will no doubt still be extremely damaging to the landscape and public access but the company will try to make it more palatable to the planning committee.

There should be no wind turbines in this splendid, sensitive spot. It is right next to the summits of Bodmin, and access land where people walk and ride. Turbines will destroy the magnificent views and the wild, rugged landscape.

We shall fight any plans to encroach on this special area.

We have joined the British Horse Society and over 120 other local objectors in opposing plans by West Berkshire Council to fence Padworth Common, west of Mortimer in West Berkshire. The council, which owns the land, wants to graze livestock there to improve the biodiversity and has applied to the Planning Inspectorate for consent for works on common land.

We are dismayed that the council does not recognise that horse-riders have rights over the whole common, yet it states that the land is subject to section 193 of the Law of Property Act 1925 which gives rights of access to horse-riders.

The fencing would conflict with those rights, severely reducing public access for riders and walkers and forcing them onto the dangerous Rectory Road and Reading Road which adjoin the common.

Furthermore, the fencing will be an eyesore and we are not convinced that it will achieve the desired result. It would be far better for the council to have a temporary enclosure to test whether it works.

We are also concerned that the fence will divide up the common, leaving parts outside the fence and at risk of being neglected.

The fencing would have an adverse effect on the public interest, and in particular on public rights of access across this wonderful common.

So we have urged the Planning Inspectorate to reject this ill-thought-out scheme.

We are delighted to have helped achieve the prompt removal of the unlawful picket-fence around part of Braintree Green Common at Rayne, one mile west of Braintree in Essex.

At the end of September, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs refused retrospective consent for the 1.1-metre-high fence on common land, around the property ‘Kenella’, under section 38 of the Commons Act 2006.

We immediately wrote to the occupant’s solicitors, Smith Law Partnership, urging that the fence be removed forthwith. We also asked Essex County Council’s legal department to write, which it did.

We were gratified to receive a letter from Smith Law stating that ‘the fence has now been removed and the common restored’. We were also pleased that Essex County Council reacted swiftly to our request to call for its removal.

The society has always, throughout its 146-year existence, campaigned to free common land from unlawful encroachments, and we are delighted that such prompt action has been taken to restore this common to the people.

We have slated the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) for driving a bulldozer through the laws for registering land as a new village green.

Herbrand Walk Beach might not have been registered as a village green if there had been a 'character test'

The society has responded to Defra’s consultation on the registration of new town or village greens. At present land can be registered as a green if it has been used by local people for informal recreation for 20 years, without being stopped or asking permission. Once registered, the land is protected from development.

The society is angry that Defra presents its proposals as an all-or-nothing package which would, the society says, ‘destructively reform’ the law.

The society also objects to Defra’s proposals to:

• introduce a ‘character test’ which would severely limit the land that can be registered as a green,

• rule out registration as a green where a site has been designated for development,

• prevent an application for land where a planning application has been submitted or on which there was statutory pre-application consultation,

• charge applicants a fee of up to £1,000.

Says Nicola Hodgson, our case officer, who advises our members on their applications to register land as greens:

‘We are dismayed that Defra is pressing for a wholesale reform of the greens registration process. While we have for two years advocated improvements to the system, to make it swifter and more transparent (which we have discussed with ministers but have apparently been ignored by Defra), we see no need to rewrite the law on registering greens.

‘Defra argues that greens applications are being used to frustrate development but it has no evidence of this. The greens registration process requires 20 years’ use by local people so they can hardly dream up evidence to thwart a planning application which is determined in a small fraction of that time.

The village green at Coatham Common, Redcar might also have failed a 'character test'

Character test
‘Defra wants to restrict registration to greens which “accord with the popularly held traditional character of such areas”, ie land which is “open and unenclosed in character”.

‘This would be disastrous as countless areas would be excluded, such as those post-industrial sites which may be the only open spaces available to local communities.

These much-loved, out-of-the way places are just as important as the traditional chocolate-box greens in the heart of villages. Indeed, greens registration is localism at its best, where local people vote with their feet.

Planning applications
‘We strongly oppose the notion of preventing registration of land once a planning application has been submitted or the land has been identified for development in a local plan. At the very least, before a planning application is determined, there should be a period during which local people can submit evidence that the land is a green.

Fees
‘We disagree with the imposition of a fee on applicants. They make the application for the public’s benefit, to record the rights that have accrued there, not for personal gain. And many applicants come from areas with low incomes, whether in the inner city or countryside, and would be deterred by such a fee.

‘We have expressed many concerns, and reiterate our proposals to improve the process by introducing time-scales, greater consultation and liaison between authorities, landowners and applicants, and better guidance. That is all that is needed.

‘We strongly suspect that these proposals are intended to allow more development of our precious green spaces. The society will fight them all the way,’ Nicola concludes.

The proposed new Local Green Space designation, in the government’s draft National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), is a muddle. It confers no right for the public to go there, so it may be that we can only look at it and not walk on it.

The society has responded to the consultation on the draft NPPF, in which the Department for Communities and Local Government proposes a new Local Green Space designation ‘to protect locally significant green areas which are special to local communities’. They are to be identified by local communities through the local and neighbourhood plans.

Says Nicola Hodgson, our case officer: ‘This new green space designation is so shackled by restrictions as to render it useless.

‘We are told that it must “complement investment in sufficient homes, jobs and other essential services”. It “will not be appropriate for most green areas of open space”. The space must be in reasonably close proximity to a centre of population or urban area, it must hold a particular local significance and it must not be an extensive tract of land.

‘Furthermore, while it must not overlap with Green Belt, the management of development there “should be consistent with policy for Green Belts”.

‘But then we are told of a host of developments which are allowed in Green Belt and therefore on the new Local Green Space—buildings for agriculture and forestry, facilities for outdoor sport, infilling in villages, mineral extraction, engineering operations and transport infrastructure, and much else.

‘There is no requirement for the public to be able to use and enjoy the Local Green Space for informal recreation. So people may look at it but not necessarily walk on it.

‘While the Green Space is supposedly identified by the local community through the local and neighbourhood plans, there is no explanation of the process for designation. We have a list of unanswered questions which show how ill thought out the proposals are.

‘These include: How is the land designated? Do communities identify the land? Will there be a minimum requirement of public support? Who will decide if land is to be designated as Local Green Space and included in the local plan? Will there be an appeal process? What will happen to existing open space that is not designated? Who will manage the land? How will it be protected? What powers of enforcement are given to local authorities?

‘It is proposed that the designation should form part of the neighbourhood plan—but such plans are not mandatory, and are intended to allow increased development.

‘In April, we sent to Eric Pickles, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, our manifesto, A framework for green space, which sets out what the new designation should achieve. We said that the new designation must guarantee permanent protection and must place on the local authority a duty to protect the land, together with powers of enforcement, through the courts if necessary.

‘Unfortunately Mr Pickles failed even to reply to us, and he has ignored our proposals.

‘We fear that the Local Green Space designation is completely meaningless,’ Nicola concludes.