Firle Estate – tax free and for what?
The Firle Estate, near Lewes in East Sussex contains some of the most iconic walking landscape in the country, including the Firle Beacon stretch of the South Downs Way. So it might not surprise you to learn that the Estate has obtained exemption from inheritance tax (2) on nearly all the estate (3) in return…
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Good Hants, bad Hants?
Hampshire County Council has a long, solid record in good countryside-management. For decades the council has led in providing better access for all and in countryside interpretation. It owns a number of well-managed country parks, commons and nature reserves. It pioneers a lottery-funded project, Providing Access to Hampshire’s Heritage (PATHH), to recruit and train volunteers…
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Campaigners condemn common-land swap for motorsport development
We have joined the Brecon Beacons Park Society and Gwent Wildlife Trust in condemning the Heads of the Valleys Development Company’s proposed land swap to enable it to build the Circuit of Wales motorsports development. We are among those who have sent strong objections to the Planning Inspectorate (PINS). Because the development would take more than…
Read MoreWe defend village greens in Welsh Government inquiry
We have spoken out in defence of village greens in Wales which, we say, are essential to the health and well-being of the Welsh population. We have sent evidence to the Welsh Environment and Sustainability Committee which is inquiring into the principles of the Planning (Wales) Bill. We are concerned that the Welsh Government proposes…
Read MoreHendy wind-turbines conflict with law to protect public rights
The society has discovered new information which could jeopardise the Hendy wind-turbine development in outstanding countryside in rural Radnorshire. The land on which Hendy Wind Farm Ltd proposes to erect at least four of the seven turbines, near Llandegley Rocks, Llandrindod Wells, was inclosed by an order for Hendy Bank made in 1885 which provided…
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Peer’s development plan threatens Lake District World Heritage status
Jim Lowther, brother of the eighth Earl of Lonsdale, who is custodian of the family’s 117-square-mile estate, is planning to develop common land at White Moss on the A591 between Rydal Water and Grasmere at the heart of the poet Wordsworth’s countryside. The Lowther estate stretches across Cumbria from Penrith to the Howgill fells—some of…
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We fight devastation of Radnorshire’s jewel
We have objected to two applications from Hendy Wind Farm Ltd to devastate Llandegley Rhos Common for a wind-farm on adjoining land. The company wants to build seven wind-turbines on land to the west of the common, obliterating the view to the striking Llandegley Rocks, five miles east of Llandrindod Wells. Because it intends to…
Read MoreBeauty-spot sun factory is rejected
We are delighted that plans for 29,000 solar panels on open fields at Forty Green, near Bledlow in Bucks, have been rejected by Wycombe District Councillors. The panels, with a substation and a variety of buildings, would have smothered 45 acres at the foot of the Chiltern escarpment. The campaign against the proposal was led…
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Newhaven Beach: landmark case for village greens to be heard in Supreme Court
The landmark case for the registration of land as a village green, at West Beach, Newhaven, East Sussex, is set to be heard in the Supreme Court on Monday and Tuesday next week (3-4 November). We are backing our member, Newhaven Town Council, the applicant for the village green. The council applied to register the…
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Secretary of State to consider revoking planning permission to build on Dundonald Rec, Merton
We were represented at a meeting with Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, at the House of Commons on Monday 27 October in support of our member, Protect Dundonald Rec Campaign Group. The campaigners for Dundonald Rec asked the Minister to exercise his power to revoke the planning permission granted by…
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