Latest News

Our new activist for Rhondda Cynon Taff

April 8, 2011

Jay Kynch of Efail Isaf, near Pontypridd in south Wales, is our new local correspondent for the southern part of Rhondda Cynon Taff. Jay is a retired development economist who has worked as a researcher at Oxford University and a lecturer at Swansea University; she has researched poverty in Indian villages and social exclusion and…

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Our action plan for the new Welsh Assembly Government

April 7, 2011

We have published our 12-point action plan for candidates in the Welsh Assembly Government election, urging them to commit themselves to our action points. We are contacting all the candidates through our members in Wales, and from our headquarters, to seek their pledges of support. Our 12 points include a better deal for the nation’s…

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Friends of the Lake District – Our Green Heritage

April 7, 2011

Friends of the Lake District are offering a new opportunity for communities to take part and receive dedicated help for their green space. They are inviting communities to participate in a 3 year funded project focusing on local heritage green space. This is a follow on to the highly successful Our Green Space project. What…

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Our new chairman

March 24, 2011

Tim Crowther from Weybridge in Surrey is our new chairman. For the past 12 years Tim has been an active member of Elmbridge Borough Council. Prior to retirement he worked for a government property agency. He became a member of the Open Spaces Society over 25 years ago. A lifelong walker, Tim has completed many…

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Message from India

March 21, 2011

In January 2011 the Open Spaces Society’s general secretary, Kate Ashbrook, attended the global conference of the International Association for the Study of the Commons (IASC) in Hyderabad.  She was the guest of IASC and of the co-host, the Indian Foundation for Ecological Security.  She gives a snapshot of her eight days in India here.

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We’re not out of the woods yet

March 21, 2011

‘While today we can celebrate the government’s abandonment of plans to flog off England’s public forest estate, we are not out of the woods yet. There is still a campaign to be fought.’ So said Kate Ashbrook, our general secretary at a well-attended rally in Friston Forest, in the South Downs National Park (between Eastbourne…

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Honiton green space saved for the community

March 11, 2011

Campaigners from Honiton in East Devon are delighted that Littletown Green has been registered as a village green.  The four-acre field has been enjoyed by local people for informal recreation for decades. With support from us, Rosemary Kimbell (a member of the society), her husband Alan and neighbours Mike Allen and Andy Cox gathered evidence…

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Whitstable beach saved from commercialisation

March 9, 2011

We have helped to save the lovely West Beach at Whitstable in Kent from commercialisation.  Canterbury City Council’s Development Control Committee last night (8 March) unanimously refused plans from the Whitstable Oyster Fishery Company to erect a beach café near Coastguard Alley. The society, with the Whitstable Beach Campaign and over 120 others, had objected…

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Gloucestershire benefactor ensures public paths are well marked

March 3, 2011

The public paths around Cheltenham in Gloucestershire continue to be well marked, thanks to the far-sightedness of Cheltenham benefactor Herbert Lucas Bradbury. Mr Bradbury died in 1959 leaving £1,500 on trust for erecting and maintaining signposts on public paths within a six-mile radius of Cheltenham Post Office.   The fund, known as the Bradbury Bequest,…

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Campaign to save Henley green space

February 25, 2011

We are dismayed that the international land-agents, Chesterton Commercial (Oxon) Ltd, plan to swallow up most of a small green space at Northfield End, Henley. They have applied for planning permission for a new layout for ten parking spaces on the green. We have sent an objection to South Oxfordshire District Council. Says the society’s…

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