Latest News

We back Friends of Putney Common’s court action

December 2, 2013

We have pledged financial support for the Friends of Putney Common’s appeal-court action to save the common from road-building. The Friends, a member of OSS, are appealing against the high court’s refusal to stop the Wimbledon and Putney Common Conservators, owner of the common, from allowing Wandsworth Council to build private roads on Putney Lower…

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We fight devastation of Swansea commons

November 27, 2013

We have sent a strong objection to plans to build 16 wind turbines with associated infrastructure on Mynydd y Gwair and adjoining commons, eight miles north of Swansea. RWE npower renewables has planning permission for the development but, because it is to be sited on registered common land, the developer needs the additional consent of…

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Ancient Warwickshire landscape saved

November 26, 2013

We are delighted that Galley Common, Nuneaton in Warwickshire has been saved from housing development. We were among the objectors to a planning application from A R Cartwright Ltd for 130 houses with associated infrastructure on land north of Tunnel Road. Nuneaton & Bedworth Borough Council refused the application in December 2012, the applicant appealed…

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Government’s miserable lack of progress on green-space promise

November 20, 2013

Wildlife and Countryside Link’s Nature Check report, signed by 41 organisations, shows a miserable lack of progress on implementing the promised Local Green Space (LGS) designation. Nature Check analyses the government’s 25 commitments on the natural environment against a traffic-light system. It reveals that nine are red, 12 are amber and only four are green.…

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Presentation to winners of OS Award 2013

November 14, 2013

Our general secretary, Kate Ashbrook, was delighted to visit Widmer Fields in Buckinghamshire recently to present our Open Space Award 2013 to Grange Area Trust for their campaigning work to save the fields which have been threatened many times with development. The Trust, which was established with the aim of conserving the 16-hectare fields as…

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Charlton Common saved: developers withdraw road-proposal

November 6, 2013

Redrow Homes has withdrawn its proposal to build a 6.4-metre-wide road with a three-metre-wide pedestrian and cycle lane across Charlton Common in South Gloucestershire.  The application was in connection with adjoining development. The public inquiry, due to start on 26 November, has been cancelled.  The inquiry opened in April and was immediately adjourned.  The room…

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Robert Hunter where are you?

November 5, 2013

‘Sir Robert Hunter would have been horrified by the government’s assault on our green spaces.’ So said Kate Ashbrook, our general secretary, on the centenary of Robert Hunter’s death on 6 November.  Robert Hunter was solicitor to the Commons Preservation Society, as the Open Spaces Society was first known, some years before he went on…

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Kate Ashbrook shortlisted as Outdoor Personality of the Year

November 4, 2013

We are delighted that our general secretary, Kate Ashbrook, has been shortlisted as Outdoor Personality of the Year in The Great Outdoors (TGO) Awards which are run annually by TGO magazine and voted for by members of the public. Kate became general secretary of the society in 1984. A former member of the Countryside Agency…

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Sir Robert Hunter, 1844-1913

November 4, 2013

6 November 2013 is the centenary of the death of Robert Hunter, the society’s solicitor from 1868 to 1882. Robert Hunter was an early luminary of the Commons Preservation Society (CPS), as the Open Spaces Society was first known. He later became solicitor to the General Post Office and founded the National Trust. He was…

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Common land reclaimed at St Just, Cornwall

November 4, 2013

More than 100 hectares of common land at Carn Kenidjack, north of St Just in Penwith, Cornwall, have been reclaimed as registered common land, using legislation which is being pioneered in Cornwall (part 1 of the Commons Act 2006). Following a public inquiry in September, planning inspector Martin Elliott ruled that the land should be…

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