Open Spaces

The open spaces we champion come in all shapes and sizes and can be in the countryside or in towns.
Is the local open space you love and use protected? Don’t take it for granted!

 

How can you defend the open and green spaces that matter to you?

We are very often asked to advise on protecting open spaces - here is a summary of the options that can be considered. One of the most effective ways for you to stand up for your right to use a local open space is to join the Open Spaces Society. As a charity, we depend on public donations to fund our vital campaigning and legal work.

As a member, you can count on the support of our expert team based at our head office in Henley-on-Thames. Depending on where you live, you may also have a local Open Spaces Society correspondent (our name for volunteer) who may be able to help you. Find out if you have a local correspondent here

Find your local correspondent

What is an open space?

The open spaces we champion come in all shapes and sizes. They can be in the countryside but also in towns.

They are usually spaces people have chosen to use for recreation, whether formal or informal.

The open spaces we are asked to defend often comprise land where the public has a right to wander such as a local green space, or an open space that has no legal protection but which people use.

It could be a stretch of grass where children play, local people go blackberry picking or to enjoy a picnic.

But just because you use it doesn’t mean it’s protected unless you do something about it. Read about some of our campaigning work to protect open spaces here.

Is the local open space you love and use protected? Don’t take it for granted.

Download our toolkit below and find out how to protect your local green space

Rally at Panshanger Park, Hertfordshireshire, in 2015.

Get our toolkit

As part of our campaign to save England’s much-loved open spaces, we have published an open spaces toolkit consisting of three handbooks:

How to win local green space through neighbourhood plans
Community assets and protecting open space
Local Green Space Designation

Become a member

Further resources about Open Spaces

  • Neighbourhood Planning and Protecting Open Spaces

    Neighbourhood planning gives communities in England the opportunity and power to set local planning policies.

  • Driving and parking on your local green space

    Residents often want to be able to stop cars, motorcycles, and even lorries and other large vehicles, from being driven and parked on their local open space for various reasons.

  • Community Assets and Protecting Open Space

    We tell you how to make use of the community asset process to protect your local open space.

  • How to win local green space through neighbourhood plans

    Neighbourhood planning gives communities in England the opportunity and power to set local planning policies. You can shape the place where you live and protect valued open spaces using the local green space designation.

  • How can open spaces be protected?

    A summary of the basic rules that apply to community open space and its protection for the local community

  • Court cases - open spaces

    Here you can find our commentary for decisions in the courts about open spaces cases.

  • What local councils can do for public access to town and countryside

    Local councils have a unique role in protecting and caring for the open spaces in their areas.  This information sheet sets out how they can go about this.

  • Protecting commons, greens and open spaces training course

    Learn the fundamentals on this comprehensive course to include definitions, registration/designation, protection and management.

  • A problem solved

    Read some of the Open Spaces Society's advice and case studies relating to problems when protecting land.

  • Frequently Asked Questions: Open Spaces

    Common questions about open spaces

  • Government Guidance - Public Access and Rights of Way in England

    Insider hacks: three Government publications that will help you to protect public access and rights of way.

  • Local Green Space Designation

    The Local Green Space designation (LGS)  protects local green areas of particular importance to local communities.

  • Local green space - a review of submitted spaces

    This document provides an excellent example of how the local green space designation process should work. 

Visit Our Information Hub
Find a local correspondent

Our latest posts on Open Spaces

Our five-point plan for 2025

In our recent new-year message we were pleased to set out our top five campaign aims for 2025. We’re calling for: Lost commons to be registerable throughout England.  Currently they can only be registered in Cumbria and North Yorkshire, yet landowners can apply to deregister commons throughout England, which is grossly unfair. A mandate on…
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Bring on Wales’s new national park

We strongly support the new national park in north-east Wales. The society believes that the national park designation will benefit the splendid, varied landscape of this region, its wildlife and culture, and will help to promote responsible public access and enjoyment.  However, it has also called for the Welsh government to make sufficient funds available…
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Call for new ‘People’s Charter’ on 75th anniversary of revolutionary national parks and access law

Today (16 December 2024), on the 75th anniversary of royal assent of the revolutionary National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949, the organisations which collectively promoted that law, call for a new vision from government. Hailed as a People’s Charter, the 1949 act was to enable all citizens, no matter their background, to…
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Government’s new planning policies give green spaces the cold shoulder 

We have expressed our fears for the future of open spaces in the government’s revised National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) published today (12 December 2024).  Says Kate Ashbrook, our general secretary: ‘We called for legal protection and long-term maintenance of urban green space; standards for the amount of green space in development, and a duty on…
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