Posts by Sarah Hacking
Time for a new manifesto for public access
‘It is time for a new manifesto for public access in town and country,’ said Kate Ashbrook, our general secretary. Kate was giving the keynote speech at the event to mark the 91st anniversary of the mass trespass on Kinder Scout on 24 April 1932. The celebrations were held at Hayfield village hall, Derbyshire, at…
Read MoreBackpack camping: Dartmoor National Park Authority to appeal
We are delighted that the Dartmoor National Park Authority (DNPA) members have unanimously agreed to appeal against the high court judgment on the Dartmoor backpack camping case. The owners of Stall Moor common. Alexander and Diana Darwall, challenged the DNPA’s argument that the Dartmoor Commons Act 1985, in giving the public the right to walk…
Read MoreCafé plans for Bristol Downs abandoned
We have welcomed the decision to abandon plans for a café on the downs in Bristol close to the Avon Gorge. The society criticised the Downs Committee[1] , which put forward the plans, for squandering public money on unlawful and undesirable projects. Meanwhile the committee is failing adequately to carry out its statutory responsibilities. The Downs…
Read MorePeaslake village alleyway saved
A threat to deregister common land in Peaslake, Surrey, has been withdrawn after we led opposition to the proposal. Application had been made to the council by the proprietors of Ranger’s Cottage, Ewhurst Road, Peaslake (which is six miles south-east of Guildford in the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty) to remove from the…
Read MoreGovernment’s lost chance to achieve levelling up
We have lamented the government’s failure to equalise the provision of green spaces for all. Responding to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities’ consultation on the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), the society sets out its priorities for government in a five-point plan. The society wants to see: 1 an improvement in the process…
Read MoreNew village greens at Dorchester on Thames and Little Wittenham, Oxfordshire
We are celebrating the registration of two new village green at Dorchester on Thames and Little Wittenham in Oxfordshire. The greens at the historic Dyke Hills (3.03 hectares), a scheduled Iron Age settlement, and at Day’s Lock Meadow (2.37 hectares) beside the River Thames. They have been voluntarily registered by a beneficent landowner, Keith Ives.…
Read MoreAutumn crisis
Our general secretary Kate Ashbrook reflects on the current attack on the environment. ‘… now it is time unequivocally to act’ wrote Louis MacNeice in Autumn Journal in 1938. And so it is in this autumn, when government has suddenly made a full-frontal onslaught on the environment, nature, and our enjoyment of them. First there…
Read MoreWe rescue two lost commons in Hertfordshire
We welcome the decision of Hertfordshire County Council, the commons registration authority, to grant our applications to register as common two pieces of land about two miles south-east of Walkern near Stevenage. These commons failed to be finally registered during the three-year period allowed by the Commons Registration Act 1965. Part 1 of the Commons…
Read MoreManifesto for the next generation
We were delighted to be invited to join the Resurgence Summit on 24 September at the Knepp estate in West Sussex. Our general secretary, Kate Ashbrook, reports on the day. The event was organised by Heal Rewilding, Youngwilders, and Knepp Wildland Foundation. Its aim was to enable young people to discuss public access and nature,…
Read MoreOur new activist in Gloucestershire
We have appointed Chas Townley as our local correspondent for Stroud District in Gloucestershire. Chas lives in Stroud and is a retired social-housing manager and former Stroud District and Town councillor. He has been working on the registration of unrecorded rights of ways in Stroud and surrounding parishes. As a result, 27 applications have been…
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