Building on Anglesey common shows need for new local-authority duty on commons
We are dismayed that Anglesey County Council has refused to take enforcement action against unlawful works on registered common land at Glanrafon, Llangoed. In March this year we wrote to Mrs Dilys Lowe, the owner of common land at Glandwr Cottage, Glarafon, to ask her to stop building a bungalow on the common. Mrs Lowe…
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Counting our battle honours
150 years ago on Sunday (19 July) at a meeting in a lawyer’s chambers in London, our organisation was launched: Britain’s oldest national conservation body. Without the society countless commons, green spaces and public paths would have been lost for ever. And there would be no National Trust, since it was the society’s founders who…
Read MoreSouth Wales commons saved from industrial development
We are overjoyed that the Welsh Government has rejected applications by RWE Innogy Ltd to erect wind-turbines and other structures on Mynydd y Gwair and adjoining commons, eight miles north of Swansea. The decision follows a public inquiry last year. The developers wanted to erect 16 wind turbines, an access track, electricity transformers, crane hard-standings,…
Read MoreNorth York Moors National Park authority approves York Potash application
We are dismayed that the North York Moors National Park Authority has approved the York Potash application. The decision was made at a special planning meeting on 30 June, and was extremely close: eight votes to seven. We backed the Campaign for National Parks (CNP) in fighting the project. Ruth Bradshaw, CNP’s policy and campaigns…
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Lake District park authority rejects second attempt to develop White Moss common
We are delighted that the Lake District National Park Authority has once again rejected plans for the development of White Moss, on the A591 between Rydal Water and Grasmere in Cumbria. Jim Lowther, brother of the eighth Earl of Lonsdale who is custodian of the family’s estate, had applied to develop common land at White…
Read MoreUnfair land swap on Cornish common
We have objected to plans to swap common land at Pendarves Woods Common, a mile south-west of Camborne in Cornwall. Earlier this year Mr Robert Weedon applied to the Secretary of State for Environment for retrospective consent for works on common land: part of a sand-school, parking areas and track, fuel pumps and tank, and…
Read MoreWe say ‘no’ to the Lowthers
The society has once again objected to renewed plans by the Lowther Estate to develop White Moss Common next to the A591 between Rydal Water and Grasmere in the Lake District National Park. Last year the estate applied for a visitor centre and hierarchy of routes at the existing car-park but the Lake District National…
Read MoreThomas Hardy would breathe a sigh of relief
We are delighted that Kingston Maurward College has withdrawn its plans to build 70 houses on parkland at Thomas Hardy’s hamlet of Lower Bockhampton, Dorset. Hardy was born at nearby Higher Bockhampton in 1840. The society was among hundreds of objectors to the development, including the Ramblers, the Thomas Hardy Society and the Lower Bockhampton…
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Our 150th birthday
This year, 2015, we celebrate our 150th anniversary—the first national conservation body to do so. Founded on 19 July 1865 as the Commons Preservation Society we first saved London commons from destruction and 30 years later created the National Trust—and we are still fighting. Now the society campaigns throughout England and Wales to protect common…
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Wycombe Council rejects plans which threatened common and bridleway
Wycombe District Council has rejected a planning application from Bramley Homes which threatened Booker Common and a public bridleway. The application was for two houses on land next to the former Live and Let Live pub at Booker Common, High Wycombe, Bucks. The society was concerned that the development would have an adverse effect on…
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