"The OSS document on Local Green Spaces is excellent"
(quote from member of the public enquiring about local green space designation)

As part of our campaign to save England’s much-loved open spaces, we have published an open spaces toolkit for communities to protect their green spaces, and have called on planning authorities to respond positively to requests to save local spaces.

Our toolkit consists of three handbooks:
(please note that, in accordance with the updated National Planning Policy Framework 2018, we will be revising these information sheets and the updated versions will be posted here shortly)
How to win local green space through neighbourhood plans;
Community assets and protecting open space and
Local Green Space Designation

We have written to all the English local planning authorities calling on them to be proactive in designating land as local green space (LGS) through neighbourhood plans.

For further information on Neighbourhood planning click here.

For further information on Community assets click here.

National Planning Policy Framework

The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) published by the Department for Communities and Local Government in March 2012 provides communities with a means of protecting local green areas as a local green space. The NPPF was revised on 24 July 2018, with minor amendments in February 2019, and the updated version can be read here.

This will enable communities, in particular circumstances, to protect areas of land that are of value to them, through local and neighbourhood plans. For more details of the process, download a copy of our free information sheet Local Green Space designation as above. Use our guidance in the information sheet to assist you in addressing the criteria to have land designated as LGS.

Examples:

Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire neighbourhood plan illustrates the types of land which have been designated.

Freshford and Limpley Stoke, Somerset Neighbourhood Development Plan includes local green space.

Planning Practice Guidelines

In a written statement on 6 March 2014, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Planning, Nick Boles, announced the publication of the Government's updated Planning Practice Guidelines.

Please visit our Information Hub for further details on protecting open

spaces and the work of the Open Spaces Society.