Our 150th anniversary year
We have had plenty of activities to celebrate our 150th anniversary year, as Britain’s oldest national conservation body. Here are some highlights. Every day we have celebrated an event in our long history with our Tweet of the Day. These are listed here. We published two books, Saving Open Spaces and Common Land. A third, Village…
Read MoreForays into Scotland
As we researched events in our 150-year history, for the 365 ‘tweets of the day‘ during 2015, we came across two occasions when we had wandered north of the border. The first was recorded in our Reports of Proceedings 1891, with the heading ‘Dumbarton Common’. This considerable area of land was set apart by Act of Parliament…
Read MoreAnglesey Council plans to dispose of public park
We are dismayed that the Isle of Anglesey County Council has published plans to dispose of Holyhead Park in South Stack Road. The public has six weeks, until 19 January 2016, in which to object to the plans. Thereafter, the council will invite expressions of interest for two weeks until 2 February, from anyone wishing…
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Charnwood Forest Regional Park
Chris Peat, our representative on Charnwood Forest Regional Park Steering Group, has sent us this report: The Open Spaces Society strongly supports the development of the Charnwood Forest Regional Park because it will protect and enhance important open spaces within easy reach of the urban areas of Leicester and Loughborough at the eastern end of…
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We help to save wonderful Wenvoe footpath
We are pleased to have helped our member, the Wenvoe Residents’ Action Group, to save a wonderful footpath at Wenvoe, in the Vale of Glamorgan. Earlier this year the Vale of Glamorgan Council consulted interested parties on a plan to move Wenvoe footpaths 21 and 22 in connection with a development to the west of…
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Circuit of Wales racetrack to drive through common land
The Welsh Government’s Deputy Minister for Farming and Food, Rebecca Evans, has approved the deregistration and exchange of a square mile of common land, to enable the Circuit of Wales mega-motorsport development to be built on the edge of the Brecon Beacons National Park in south Wales. The application from the Heads of the Valleys…
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Dismay at Derbyshire’s cuts to the rights-of-way service
We are disappointed that Derbyshire County Council is likely to go ahead with its proposed cuts to the rights-of-way budget, following a controversial consultation in the summer. These cuts could result in the loss of up to three staff and the extension of target times for resolving path complaints, so that it could take up…
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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…
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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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We applaud new public path in North Norfolk
A landowner, Wayware Ltd of Southrepps Hall, has dedicated a public byway in the parishes of Sustead and Aldborough and Thurgarton in North Norfolk. The 1,055-metre route leaves Sustead Lane at about 300 yards west of St Peter and St Pauls’ church, Sustead, running in a west-south-westerly direction. It connects Sustead Lane and Bessingham Road…
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