Our 150th anniversary
2015 marks 150 years of the Open Spaces Society – Britain’s oldest national conservation body – and we invite you to help us celebrate this special year. Follow our 150th anniversary tweet-of-the-day Every day we are posting a tweet and message on Facebook with the hashtag #saveopenspaces150 to celebrate an achievement in our 150-year history. They are listed by…
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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…
Read MoreLandscapes for everyone
Great Britain’s diverse landscapes need champions. A consortium of national organisations has taken up the challenge. We have a shared vision of why our unique British landscapes should be protected for the benefit of current and future generations and what Government action is needed. Read more here. The official launch of ‘Landscapes for everyone’ will…
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Firle Estate – tax free and for what?
The Firle Estate, near Lewes in East Sussex contains some of the most iconic walking landscape in the country, including the Firle Beacon stretch of the South Downs Way. So it might not surprise you to learn that the Estate has obtained exemption from inheritance tax (2) on nearly all the estate (3) in return…
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Good Hants, bad Hants?
Hampshire County Council has a long, solid record in good countryside-management. For decades the council has led in providing better access for all and in countryside interpretation. It owns a number of well-managed country parks, commons and nature reserves. It pioneers a lottery-funded project, Providing Access to Hampshire’s Heritage (PATHH), to recruit and train volunteers…
Read MoreKent’s coastal access needs your help
Natural England is making good progress with coastal access around England. A stretch which is nearing fruition is between Folkestone and Ramsgate in Kent. Kent Ramblers, through its coastal access officer Ian Wild and with support from the OSS, has worked closely with Natural England and we are all pleased with the route which Natural England proposed…
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Lettaford saga
Last May our member Sally Button contacted us for help in reopening the Mariners’ Way footpath through the hamlet of Lettaford, near North Bovey in the Dartmoor National Park. The path ran through the farmyard of High Lettaford Farm. About a month before the gate on the southern side of the property had been locked and…
Read MoreTake care of your footpaths
In a recent edition of the Clun Chronicle, Cliff Freund, our long-standing member and former local correspondent for Shropshire, stresses the importance of getting involved, and supporting organisations such as OSS, if you want to protect your local rights-of-way network. Read his article here.
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The tide has turned
Our general secretary, Kate Ashbrook, writes about worrying changes in legal opinion. Fifteen years ago the Sunningwell case clarified the law on village greens in the public interest. Since then a series of cases has gone the same way—but now the tide has turned. Already this year we have had three judgments about greens in…
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Hedge removed from Goose Green common
Surrey member Hugh Craddock reports a success in waking up a district council to its duties under the Commons Act 1899. Many commons in west Surrey were put into schemes of regulation and management under the 1899 act by rural district councils in the first half of the twentieth century; Waverley Borough Council is now…
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