Latest News

OSS signs up to Access to Justice statement

June 11, 2015

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 More

Major victory for green spaces of Wales

May 21, 2015

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 More

Welsh village greens rescued from damaging law-change

May 20, 2015

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…

Read More

We object to path change in Wenvoe, South Wales

May 19, 2015

We have objected to a plan to move a beautiful footpath at Wenvoe, in the Vale of Glamorgan. The Vale of Glamorgan Council has consulted interested parties on a plan to move Wenvoe footpath 21 in connection with a development to the west of Port Road. The council wants to shift the path next to…

Read More

Proposed ‘environmental trust’ is irrelevant

March 17, 2015

The announcement by the Circuit of Wales developers that they intend to set up an ecological trust to fund environmental improvements around the development site at Ebbw Vale is irrelevant. The society is to appear at the public inquiry on Thursday [19 March] in opposition to the developers’ proposals for exchange of common land. The…

Read More

We call on landowner to stop destroying Anglesey common

March 13, 2015

We have called on Mrs Dilys Lowe, the owner of land at Glandwr Cottage, Glanrafon, Llangoed in Anglesey, to stop building a bungalow on registered common land. Mrs Lowe has planning permission for the bungalow but has been told by Anglesey County Council and others that the work is unlawful unless she obtains the consent…

Read More

Cock-up of Wales

March 2, 2015

Two years ago the society objected to the planning application for the Circuit of Wales motor-sports development on common land, just north of Ebbw Vale in south Wales.  At that time the developer, the Heads of the Valleys Development Company, stated optimistically and inaccurately on its website that ‘planning permission is the final hurdle’. Although…

Read More

Welsh Committee calls for better protection for village greens in Planning Bill

February 2, 2015

We are delighted that a National Assembly for Wales Committee is calling for better protection of village greens. The report of the Environment and Sustainability Committee, which is scrutinising the Planning (Wales) Bill, states that ‘the provisions of the Bill in relation to town and village greens, as currently drafted, have caused us some concern’.…

Read More

Welsh Assembly debates Circuit of Wales

January 19, 2015

We have sent a briefing to Antoinette Sandbach, shadow Welsh environment minister and Assembly Member for North Wales, who is leading a short debate in the Welsh Assembly on Wednesday 21 January about the controversial Circuit of Wales motorsports development at Rassau in Blaenau Gwent.  The debate is called Giving the Circuit of Wales the…

Read More

Shropshire beauty-spot under siege

November 27, 2014

The society has objected to proposed development on the slopes of the dramatic Caer Caradoc, near Church Stretton in the Shropshire Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The plans, from Morris Property, are for 85 dwellings and 16 holiday units, sprawled over fields immediately to the south-west of Caer Caradoc and east of Church Stretton.…

Read More