Village greens legislation update
Growth & Infrastructure Act – update 2 September 2013 The government has published further guidance to reflect a number of significant changes to the law on registering new town and village greens under the Commons Act 2006, made in April 2013 under the Growth and Infrastructure Act. It replaces the interim version published in May 2013.…
Read MoreNew streamlined planning guide launched online
The Department for Communities and Local Government has launched a test website for its new National Planning Practice Guidance. In making the announcement, Planning Minister Nick Boles claimed that the new on-line guidance will give much needed simplicity and clarity to the planning system and bring about better community involvement. The ‘user friendly’ format is…
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We object to further threat to green spaces
We have objected to the government’s plans to make it even more difficult to register land as a town or village green in England, following the harsh restrictions already imposed by the Growth and Infrastructure Act earlier this year. The society has responded to a consultation by the Department for Communities and Local Government and…
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We calls for protection for paths, commons and greens when land is sold
We have called for public paths, common land and town and village greens to be protected when land is sold. We want questions about the existence of these features on a property to be compulsory, so that a prospective purchaser knows about them before he or she buys the land. At present these questions are…
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Section 56 and all that …………
Alan Lyne, our local correspondent for Carlisle City, tells of his success in getting rights of way opened with the threat of a notice under section 56 of the Highways Act 1980. Trawling back through the Redspearlands Footpaths Group’s archives, Alan came across the papers from a meeting of the Cumbria County Council Development Control…
Read MoreOur vice-president deplores lack of protection for green spaces
‘It is deplorable that, 16 months after the government published its plans for protecting England’s green spaces through a new Local Green Space Designation, very few such designations have been made.’ So declared Paul Clayden, our vice-president, at the society’s AGM in Birmingham on Tuesday (16 July). ‘In March 2012 the government published its National…
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Call for better protection of our unique common land
We are calling for better protection for the unique common land of England and Wales. Our general secretary, Kate Ashbrook, spoke at a conference held at Newcastle University, Sustaining the Commons, on 5 July. Said Kate: ‘While the term”‘common” is understood internationally to mean “shared resource”—whether land, sea, the air or even information—here in…
Read MoreRelief that Natural England will stay independent
We are relieved at the government’s announcement that Natural England will not be merged with the Environment Agency. In response to the consultation by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) earlier this year on the triennial review of these bodies, the society had called for Natural England to be retained as a…
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Appeal Court rules that village-greens law complies with human-rights law
We are pleased that the Court of Appeal has confirmed that the law for registering land as a town or village green complies with human rights legislation. The test case concerned land at West Beach, Newhaven, in East Sussex, where Newhaven Town Council has fought two legal challenges to its application to register the land…
Read MoreNew bill threatens public’s rights to open spaces and paths
We are alarmed that the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill, which is to have its second reading in the House of Commons on Monday (10 June), could make trespass a criminal offence in public places in England. The Bill will enable a local authority to make a Public Spaces Protection Order on a public…
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