We object to new houses next to Booker Common and bridleway
We have objected to a planning application from Bramley Homes for two houses on land next to the former Live and Let Live pub at Booker Common, High Wycombe, Bucks. The society is concerned that the development could have an adverse effect on the adjoining Booker Common and public bridleway. The planning statement does not…
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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…
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Campaigners condemn common-land swap for motorsport development
We have joined the Brecon Beacons Park Society and Gwent Wildlife Trust in condemning the Heads of the Valleys Development Company’s proposed land swap to enable it to build the Circuit of Wales motorsports development. We are among those who have sent strong objections to the Planning Inspectorate (PINS). Because the development would take more than…
Read MoreHendy wind-turbines conflict with law to protect public rights
The society has discovered new information which could jeopardise the Hendy wind-turbine development in outstanding countryside in rural Radnorshire. The land on which Hendy Wind Farm Ltd proposes to erect at least four of the seven turbines, near Llandegley Rocks, Llandrindod Wells, was inclosed by an order for Hendy Bank made in 1885 which provided…
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Lake District Park Authority rejects ‘Legoland’ development at White Moss
The Lake District National Park Authority’s Development Control Committee today rejected plans for the development of White Moss. 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 Moss on the A591 between Rydal Water and Grasmere. The committee members, by…
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Peer’s development plan threatens Lake District World Heritage status
Jim Lowther, brother of the eighth Earl of Lonsdale, who is custodian of the family’s 117-square-mile estate, is planning to develop common land at White Moss on the A591 between Rydal Water and Grasmere at the heart of the poet Wordsworth’s countryside. The Lowther estate stretches across Cumbria from Penrith to the Howgill fells—some of…
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We fight devastation of Radnorshire’s jewel
We have objected to two applications from Hendy Wind Farm Ltd to devastate Llandegley Rhos Common for a wind-farm on adjoining land. The company wants to build seven wind-turbines on land to the west of the common, obliterating the view to the striking Llandegley Rocks, five miles east of Llandrindod Wells. Because it intends to…
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Hampshire County Council to stop public from claiming rights on its land
We are dismayed that Hampshire County Council, the greens registration authority, is posting notices on all its countryside sites to prevent people from registering the land as a village green or claiming public paths there. The county council has written to all the parish clerks in Hampshire to warn them that the notices are going…
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Government website advises landowners to break the law
The government website which advises landowners of their responsibilities for public rights of way on their land tells them to break the law. Says our general secretary Kate Ashbrook: ‘The website advises landowners that it’s OK to plough cross-field paths provided people can easily walk around the edge of the field. The relevant legislation (Highways…
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Local correspondents’ summit
Our local correspondents, our eyes and ears on the ground, are meeting this weekend at Hillscourt conference centre, Rednal, at the foot of the Lickey Hills in Worcestershire. There are a number of sessions on enforcement on public paths, protecting their full width and ensuring that all structures are friendly to users; saving greens and other…
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