The Open Spaces Society, which is active throughout Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2015. Founded in 1865 as the Commons Preservation Society it is Britain’s oldest national conservation body. In its early years it saved many commons and other open spaces in and around London: Hampstead Heath, Epping Forest and Wimbledon Common for example.
It studied all the parliamentary bills, of which there were many in the late Victorian era for the building of railways in particular. The society helped save Hungerford Common in Berkshire, among others, from the Great Western Railway in 1908.
In 1895 the society’s founders and early activists created the National Trust as a landholding body. The society then established local committees who raised money to buy threatened properties for the Trust. For instance, the society assisted local people with the acquisition of common land by the National Trust around Marlow and Maidenhead in Berkshire in the 1930s.
Today the society still safeguards common land: as a statutory consultee it scrutinises every application for works there. Commons are important to their local communities and it is vital that the society examines all the applications for works. We have helped to defeat some inappropriate proposals, such as unsightly and restrictive fencing on Kingswood Common in the Chilterns. In 2010 the society published guidance to land managers, Finding Common Ground, on how to ensure that they take account of all those with a stake in the common before they proceed with plans which might alter its appearance or ecology.
We also advise communities on protecting their green spaces, by registering them as town or village greens. Most recently, we have helped the Grange Area Trust to register 42 acres of Widmer Fields, near Hazlemere in Buckinghamshire, as a green—one of the largest in England. Also, we have assisted communities to register village greens at Trap Grounds, Oxford; Sunningwell, and Humpty Hill, Faringdon in Oxfordshire, Pimms Grove, High Wycombe and Woughton Park and Passmore, Old Woughton, Milton Keynes, among many others. Once land is registered as a green, local people have the right of recreation there and the land is protected from development.
It is more difficult to claim land as a green now that the Growth and Infrastructure Act has been passed, outlawing the registration of greens where land is threatened with development. So we are promoting an alternative means of protecting land, by applying for its designation as Local Green Space in the local or neighbourhood plan.
We work with local conservation organisation, The Chiltern Society where our expertise in commons and rights of way support their aims. We challenged the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty management plan for 2019-24 to put greater emphasis on common land, incentivising landowners to improve public access and to encourage voluntary registration of land as town or village greens, to mitigate for future development.
We were active in the campaign to achieve a responsible freedom to roam for the public on common land and mapped areas of moor, heath and down, culminating in the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000. We helped to win Beacon Hill, near Ellesborough, and Cobstone Hill at Ibstone, both in Bucks, as access land for the public.
Our history of defending public paths goes back a long way. For example, in 1902 the society secured the reopening of 35 footpaths and bridleways after they had been obstructed by the Chequers Estate. Today the society is notified of all proposed changes to public paths and, where we have a volunteer local correspondent, we object if we believe the change is against the public interest. This means that we may need to appear at public inquiries and hearings. We cannot afford legal representation so we make use of our in-house expertise from staff and volunteers with long experience.
In Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and beyond we champion the cause of open spaces and public paths. We take up hundreds of cases each year and we lobby parliament for better, tougher laws. We have no public funding; we depend on legacies and donations to support our vital work.
Watch our short video to find out more about how we have used bequests to save open spaces and paths.
https://www.oss.org. uk/what-you-can-do/legacies/
Web www.oss.org.uk
Tel 01491 573535
Email hq@oss.org.uk
Registered in England and Wales, limited company 7846516
Charity no 1144840
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