Chester walking club celebrates centenary in style
‘The Chester Rambling and Hill Walking Club has provided pleasure and adventure to walkers for 100 years. It could take a lead in campaigning for walkers’ rights too.’ So said Kate Ashbrook, our general secretary, speaking at the club’s centenary dinner in Chester on Thursday 16 May. More than 135 club members at the dinner…
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Pocket Parks Plus: Great Opportunity For Open Spaces
We have welcomed the new grant scheme for establishing, restoring and renovating open spaces. Launched by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, Pocket Parks Plus provides match funding to communities who want to create small spaces for local people to enjoy. Applications must be made by 25 January 2019. The land can be any size up…
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Chilterns Plan Should Promote Public Access And Open Spaces
We have called for a greater recognition of the importance of common land in the new objectives in the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty’s management plan. We were commenting on the Chilterns Conservation Board’s draft management plan for 2019-2024. There are nearly 200 commons in the Chilterns covering 2,000 hectares. Many of them are…
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Pulling The Trigger On Village Greens
Cooper Estates Strategic Land Ltd v Wiltshire Council and Richard Gosnell and Royal Wootton Bassett Town Council. This is the first court case to pronounce on the meaning of ‘trigger events’ (as defined in section 15C of, and schedule 1A to, the Commons Act 2006) and has worrying implications. Such an event, which includes the…
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We call for greater protection of green spaces in cities
We have welcomed the Welsh Conservative Party’s consultation paper Liveable Cities and its support for parks and green spaces and sustainable transport in cities. In responding, the society has made some new proposals. While it welcomes the paper’s recommendation that local authorities should be required to submit plans that highlight land which can be made…
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Our local correspondents gather in the Lickey Hills
Over two days in mid August, 29 local correspondents, trustees and members of staff met at the Hillscourt conference centre, Rednall, on the edge of the Lickey Hills country park south-west of Birmingham. It was an opportunity to swap experiences and ideas and to learn more about the range of activities in which the society…
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Government’s planning charter fails to protect open spaces
We are dismayed that the revised Natural Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), which was published on 24 July, gives no additional protection to open spaces, beyond a tiny improvement in wording. The society had objected in the draft to the restrictive wording accompanying the designation of land as local green space (LGS). The draft stated that…
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Lake District’s plan review may endanger unique landscape
We fear that the review of the Local Plan for the Lake District National Park may result in an intensification of activities which are alien to the environment. The society has expressed these views in its response to the consultation on the plan. Says one of our case officers, Nicola Hodgson: ‘This is a unique…
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Government misses the opportunity to protect open space
We have criticised the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government for its lack of protection of open space. The ministry has recently consulted on a revised National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), to which the we have responded. In particular, the society believes that the proposed new NPPF undermines the Local Green Space (LGS) designation…
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Appeal court upholds village green registrations in Lancashire and Surrey
We are delighted that the Court of Appeal has upheld the registration of village greens at Moorside Fields in Lancaster and Leach Grove Wood at Leatherhead in Surrey.(1) The two cases were heard together and the court has dismissed an appeal from Lancashire County Council which, as the education authority, owns the 13-hectare Moorside Fields.…
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