We fight fencing on national park common
We have objected to an application to erect more than half a mile of fencing on Westerdale Common in the North York Moors National Park. The Graziers of High Blakey Moor have applied to the Planning Inspectorate for consent for the fence on common land to prevent sheep straying. The fence is on open country…
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Multi million pound Firle footpath ploughed up again
Yet again, the Firle Estate has ploughed up a path for which it gets a huge subsidy to keep open. The path, which runs south from the Barley Mow Pub at Selmeston, is one of the reasons that the Firle estate gets millions of pounds worth of Inheritance Tax relief. Until the Open Spaces Society…
Read MoreNew funding initiative to create ‘pocket parks’
The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) has announced a new programme that supports communities to work with local authorities and other partners to establish a pocket park. Pocket Parks are envisaged as small areas of inviting public space where people can enjoy relief from the hustle and bustle of city streets DCLG is…
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Croeso i Gymru?
‘Opinion’ by our general secretary, Kate Ashbrook, was published in the autumn 2015 issue of Open Space. In spring 1986 I wrote an article in this magazine called ‘When you go off Offa’s …’. I had been walking part of the Offa’s Dyke national trail and then tried to return on a route using connecting paths…
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The Great Outdoors Personality of the Year award
Our general secretary, Kate Ashbrook, has been shortlisted for The Great Outdoors magazine’s Personality of the Year award. She has been nominated as ‘a knowledgeable and fearless campaigner for our rights in the great outdoors’. Kate has been in post for 31 years. She is also president of the Ramblers, a trustee of the Campaign for…
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Castle Acre Green, Swansea, becomes a new village green
We are delighted that 2.9 acres of green space and woodland known as Castle Acre Green, Norton, in the village of Mumbles near Swansea, has been registered as a village green by the commons registration authority of the City of Swansea. This means that local people have established their legal right to continue to use…
Read MoreDismay at decision for Beverley Westwood Common
We are dismayed that the environment secretary has approved a land swap to allow a cycle track and footway to be driven across the historic Beverley Westwood Common in the East Riding of Yorkshire. The society was among the objectors at a public hearing held on 13 October. East Riding of Yorkshire Council proposed to…
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Lakes and Dales park extensions will protect precious landscapes
We are overjoyed that the government has today announced that it will extend the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales National Parks, to include land which should never have been excluded, much of it common land. The environment secretary Liz Truss has confirmed the designations made by Natural England in 2012, following a public inquiry in…
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Only ten years left to record our public paths
‘There are only ten years left before we could lose thousands of public highways.’ So warned Phil Wadey, our vice-chairman, at a meeting organised by the Gatliff Trust in London on 24 October. Phil is an expert in recording public paths on the definitive maps of rights of way. Says Phil: ‘On 1 January 2026,…
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150th anniversary of Nottingham Forest recreation ground’s inclosure oak
On Sunday, 18 October, we joined Nottingham citizens in celebrating 150 years of the Nottingham Forest recreation ground. In the year of the Open Spaces Society’s foundation, 1865, the first oak-tree, the Inclosure Oak, was planted close to the Mansfield Road entrance to the Forest recreation ground. This was to celebrate the grant of 122 acres of…
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