Our Caerphilly activist wins Environmental Champion Award
Maggie Thomas, our local correspondent for Caerphilly, has won the Environmental Champion prize in Caerphilly County Borough Council’s Pride in your Place award, for her work in defending public paths and open spaces. Maggie, who lives in Crosskeys, is also membership secretary for Islwyn Ramblers. Says Maggie: ‘I was thrilled to receive this award on…
Read MorePlan to desecrate Hammersmith Park
We have objected to plans by Playfootball Ltd to build football pitches with a pavilion and car park on Hammersmith Park in west London. Playfootball has submitted a planning application to the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham Council. We are concerned that the development will take more than one-third of the public park which…
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Environment Committee tells government it must update the common-land registers
We are delighted that the influential Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Efra) Committee has told the government that it must update the common-land registers or implement legislation to ensure that there are accurate registers of common land for making payments under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The committee’s report, Implementation of the Common Agricultural Policy…
Read MoreWe back Friends of Putney Common’s court action
We have pledged financial support for the Friends of Putney Common’s appeal-court action to save the common from road-building. The Friends, a member of OSS, are appealing against the high court’s refusal to stop the Wimbledon and Putney Common Conservators, owner of the common, from allowing Wandsworth Council to build private roads on Putney Lower…
Read MoreWe fight devastation of Swansea commons
We have sent a strong objection to plans to build 16 wind turbines with associated infrastructure on Mynydd y Gwair and adjoining commons, eight miles north of Swansea. RWE npower renewables has planning permission for the development but, because it is to be sited on registered common land, the developer needs the additional consent of…
Read MoreAncient Warwickshire landscape saved
We are delighted that Galley Common, Nuneaton in Warwickshire has been saved from housing development. We were among the objectors to a planning application from A R Cartwright Ltd for 130 houses with associated infrastructure on land north of Tunnel Road. Nuneaton & Bedworth Borough Council refused the application in December 2012, the applicant appealed…
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Government’s miserable lack of progress on green-space promise
Wildlife and Countryside Link’s Nature Check report, signed by 41 organisations, shows a miserable lack of progress on implementing the promised Local Green Space (LGS) designation. Nature Check analyses the government’s 25 commitments on the natural environment against a traffic-light system. It reveals that nine are red, 12 are amber and only four are green.…
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Presentation to winners of OS Award 2013
Our general secretary, Kate Ashbrook, was delighted to visit Widmer Fields in Buckinghamshire recently to present our Open Space Award 2013 to Grange Area Trust for their campaigning work to save the fields which have been threatened many times with development. The Trust, which was established with the aim of conserving the 16-hectare fields as…
Read MoreCharlton Common saved: developers withdraw road-proposal
Redrow Homes has withdrawn its proposal to build a 6.4-metre-wide road with a three-metre-wide pedestrian and cycle lane across Charlton Common in South Gloucestershire. The application was in connection with adjoining development. The public inquiry, due to start on 26 November, has been cancelled. The inquiry opened in April and was immediately adjourned. The room…
Read MoreRobert Hunter where are you?
‘Sir Robert Hunter would have been horrified by the government’s assault on our green spaces.’ So said Kate Ashbrook, our general secretary, on the centenary of Robert Hunter’s death on 6 November. Robert Hunter was solicitor to the Commons Preservation Society, as the Open Spaces Society was first known, some years before he went on…
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