Latest News

New guidance published on purging pointless path-paraphernalia 

October 21, 2024

We have published Removing and improving path paraphernalia guidance to local authorities, land managers, and rights-of-way volunteers on the provision of easy access to paths and countryside.  The information sheet aims to help those who share the society’s goal of reducing unnecessary and undesirable structures from our public paths.  Too often our way is barred…

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Last chance for Dartmoor backpack-camping rights 

October 7, 2024

The final hearing on the Dartmoor backpack camping case is tomorrow (8 October) in the supreme court.  The case, between landowners Alexander and Diana Darwall and the Dartmoor National Park Authority, has previously been heard in the high court and the court of appeal.  Now it goes to the supreme court for final determination.  The…

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Guts—not cuts

October 1, 2024

In the latest edition of Open Space magazine, our general secretary, Kate Ashbrook, urges the new government to be bold in securing new and better access.  She writes:  The new Westminster government arrived sooner than expected. Does this mean new access sooner than expected?  The government has so far been silent on this subject as…

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Green-space neglect in government’s new policies 

September 9, 2024

We are deeply concerned at the direction taken by the government’s revised National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF).  Our case officer Nicola Hodgson has responded to the consultation on the revised policy. You can read Nicola’s full response here. ‘The government has not proposed any significant changes to the NPPF to support the creation and protection…

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Goodbye to blocked byway in East Sussex

September 2, 2024

Following pressure from Chris Smith, our local correspondent for Lewes district in East Sussex, the Firle Estate has reopened a blocked byway.  This is an old, two-kilometre-long route, shown on some eighteenth-century maps.  It runs between Newelm, west of Firle, westwards to the A26 road at The Lay in Beddingham parish.  It was probably first…

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Byway-blockage epidemic in Wiltshire 

August 27, 2024

The society has been pressing Wiltshire Council to secure the removal of obstructions on byways in Wiltshire. The council has finally acted—but only in one case, ordering a farmer to remove a set of illegal gates across a byway in the Wylye Valley. That followed a statutory notice from us requiring the council to have…

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Two Cornish lost commons restored

August 22, 2024

We welcome two decisions by the Planning Inspectorate to grant applications to register common land in Cornwall.  These are about three hectares at Burngullow Common (6.4 kilometres north-west of St Austell), and about five hectares at West Looe Downs at West Looe. The application for Burngullow Common was made by Tomas Hill on behalf of…

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We fight Clyne Common swap at public inquiry 

August 5, 2024

We object to the proposed, unfair land swap on Clyne Common, Swansea, and will give evidence to a public inquiry which opens on Tuesday (6 August)[1]. The society joins the Gower Society and many other objectors in arguing that the Duke of Beaufort’s Somerset Trust land to be taken for housing is far superior to…

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Gerry Stewart, 1933 – 2024 

August 5, 2024

We are sad that our local correspondent for Cotswold District in Gloucestershire who served for 26 years, has died aged 90.  Gerald Frederick Stewart, known as Gerry, was born in Winchcombe on 5 September 1933.  He moved, as a young child, to Frampton Cottages, near the village of Alderton, six miles east of Tewkesbury.  He…

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Open Spaces Society to intervene in supreme court in Dartmoor backpack-camping case

August 5, 2024

We are delighted to have been granted permission to intervene in the Dartmoor backpack-camping case.    The society intervened in support of the Dartmoor National Park Authority in the Court of Appeal and was relieved when the court ruled that the Dartmoor Commons Act 1985 gave the public the right to camp on nearly all the Dartmoor…

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