Minister refuses to extend deadline for registering common land
We are dismayed that environment minister John Gardiner has refused to extend the deadline for re-registering lost commons beyond the end of December 2020. The society is concerned that, in seven English local authority areas1, the deadline for registering lost commons is 31 December, less than four months away. The research to uncover lost commons…
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Expanding our freedoms
The Open Spaces Society has long campaigned for responsible freedom to roam away from public paths in England and Wales. The Countryside and Rights of Way (CROW) Act 2000 went some way towards achieving this, but the rights were only for walkers and were limited to registered commons, and mapped areas of mountain, moor, heath…
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Taking people out of planning
With many other environmental charities, we have condemned the government’s proposals to speed up the planning process and reduce democratic involvement. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has published a consultation, Planning for the Future, with closing date of 29 October 2020. This proposes a total rewrite of the rules first set out…
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New charter for Wales’s open spaces
Today we call for a better deal for open spaces in Wales. We have published a charter and have written to Julie James, the Minister for Housing and Local Government, and all of Wales’s planning authorities. We want the government to introduce a national plan and standards for open spaces and to revise and update…
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New charter for open spaces
Today we call for a better deal for open spaces. We have published a charter and have written to Robert Jenrick, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, and to all of England’s planning authorities. We call on government to introduce a national plan and standards for open spaces, and to place…
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A toothless watchdog?
Our case officer Nicola Hodgson is keeping a close watch on the Environment Bill. This was introduced to parliament on 30 January 2020 with second reading on 26 February. The public-bill committee’s scrutiny was cut short by the covid-19 crisis, and the committee was expected to report to parliament by the end of June, but…
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We fight access track across Oxfordshire common
We have objected strongly to an application for the construction of an access track, 66 metres long, across Baulking Common, near Faringdon in Oxfordshire. Miss Jessica Reid has applied to the Planning Inspectorate for consent under section 38 of the Commons Act 2006 to construct a track across the common. This would run between Baulking…
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Extend deadlines to rescue common land and village greens
We have urged the government to extend deadlines to enable the public to safeguard common land and town and village greens. This would be in line with the extension of deadlines to allow development to proceed, under the Business and Planning Bill 2019-21. The society has written to the environment minister, Lord Gardiner. We are…
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Archive progress
The Special Collections team at the University of Reading and the Museum of English Rural Life (the MERL) has been working with the society to care for, and to open, our archive to the public and to potential researchers. The completed cataloguing work, and the collected oral histories of key staff members, will reveal our…
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We help to save part of Clyne Common, Swansea
We are delighted that the Duke of Beaufort’s Somerset Trust, the owner of part of Clyne Common, south-west of Swansea, has withdrawn its application for a land swap. The trustees of the Somerset Trust applied to the Welsh environment minister, via the Planning Inspectorate, to deregister 2.7 hectares on the eastern side of the common…
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