Posts by Daniel Cregin
How to defend the commons
We are delighted to help with a new, online course—Defending the Commons: Strategies for Action. The course will be run by the Countryside and Community Research Institute (CCRI) at Gloucestershire University and Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) in Mexico. It is the second in a series of online short courses focusing on different aspects of global…
Read MoreOSS signs up to Access to Justice statement
The UK’s four umbrella conservation groups – Wildife & Countryside Link, Scottish Environment Link, Wales Environment Link and Northern Ireland Environment Link – will present a statement to the Aarhus Convention* on 16 June calling for better access to environmental justice. The Open Spaces Society has been pleased to sign in support of this statement.…
Read MoreTalking commons in Canada
The biennial conference of the International Association for the Study of the Commons (IASC) was held this year in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Kate Ashbrook attended, generously funded by the Elinor Ostrom Award of which the society was a winner in 2013. Here is her summary of her visit. I travelled with John Powell from the Countryside and…
Read MoreFighting on
‘Opinion’ by our general secretary, Kate Ashbrook, was published in the summer 2015 issue of Open Space. When David Cameron announced on 8 May that he was forming a government, he boasted of his achievements over the last five years and what he would do in the next five. Not surprisingly there was no mention…
Read MoreBooker housing plans rejected
We are delighted that planning inspector Christa Masters has rejected plans to build two houses next to Booker Common and a public bridleway in Buckinghamshire. Mr P Wells appealed against Wycombe District Council’s refusal of his application for two detached dwellings next to the former Live and Let Live pub. The developers appeared to ignore…
Read MoreShepherd’s Bush tower quashed
The London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham has rejected plans for a tower next to Shepherd’s Bush Common in west London. Dorsett Hospitality International had applied for planning permission to demolish the existing former Walkabout building and replace it with a 16-storey tower. The council decided that the proposed development was ‘unacceptable in the interests…
Read MoreYateley Common fencing-plan withdrawn
Hampshire County Council and the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust have withdrawn their controversial plan to erect fencing on Yateley Common. They had applied to the Planning Inspectorate for consent, under section 38 of the Commons Act 2006, to erect 24 kilometres of fencing on the common to enable it to be grazed.…
Read MoreInternational commons conference in Canada
Our general secretary, Kate Ashbrook, is in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, for the biennial conference of the International Association for the Study of the Commons (IASC), 25-29 May. She has been generously funded by the Elinor Ostrom Award, which the society won in 2013. The society is keen to encourage the IASC to embrace practitioners who…
Read MoreMajor victory for green spaces of Wales
The Welsh Government has decided not to ape England’s village-greens law. In December 2013 we learnt that the Welsh Government was proposing, in its Planning (Wales) Bill, to copy the provisions of England’s egregious Growth and Infrastructure Act 2013 for greens. In other words, it proposed that applications for greens should be outlawed when land had been identified for planning,…
Read MoreWelsh village greens rescued from damaging law-change
We are delighted to have helped stop the Planning (Wales) Act from making devastating changes to village-green law. The Planning (Wales) Act, which was finalised yesterday (19 May), was amended during its passage through the Welsh Assembly, thanks to the society’s campaign. Assembly Members reversed several draconian measures which would have severely restricted the public’s…
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