Skip to content
Menu
Menu

Open Spaces Society’s Five-Point Plan for 2025

filler

In a new-year message, the Open Spaces Society(1), Britain’s oldest national conservation body, sets out its five top campaign aims for 2025.

The society calls for:

1       Lost commons(2) to be registerable throughout England. Currently they can only be registered in Cumbria and North Yorkshire, yet landowners can apply to deregister commons throughout England, which is grossly unfair.

2       A mandate on developers to create open space within developments and to register it as a town or village green(3), thus securing it for ever and giving local people rights of recreation there.

3       The repeal of the cut-off for claims for unrecorded paths (2031 in England, 2026 in Wales), already promised by both governments but requiring parliamentary and Senedd time to enact(4).

4       A national consultation by ministers on public access, as promised before the election; and action from Welsh government on proposals presented to it by its adviser, Natural Resources Wales, in 2021—these arose from extensive work with access experts, and include responsible freedom to roam over more land including the coast, better means of access to existing access land, and improved rights for horse-riders, and cyclists.

5       Good-quality open space to be assured within 15-minutes’ walk of people’s homes, as set out in the Westminster government’s Environmental Improvement Plan(5).

Kilvey Hill, Swansea

One of many unrecorded paths on Kilvey Hill, Swansea, which is threatened with development.

Speaking from her attic office at the society’s headquarters in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, general secretary Kate Ashbrook says:

‘This year the Open Spaces Society celebrates its 160th anniversary.  There is no better way to mark this than to step up our campaigns to secure green spaces, and to protect and increase the public’s right to enjoy paths and open spaces.  These are vital to our health and wellbeing in an increasingly pressurised and chaotic world.’


(1) The Open Spaces Society was founded in 1865 and is Britain’s oldest national conservation body.  It campaigns to protect common land, village greens, open spaces and public paths, and people’s right to enjoy them, throughout England and Wales.

(2) Common land is land subject to, or formerly subject to, rights of common—to graze animals or collect wood for instance—or waste land of the manor not subject to rights.  The public has the right to walk on nearly all commons, and to ride on many.  Commons are protected in that works on common land require the consent of the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, via the Planning Inspectorate, under section 38 of the Commons Act 2006.

Applications for the registration of commons had to be made during a three-year period, 1967 to 1970, under the Commons Registration Act 1965, but many were omitted.  Part 1 of the Commons Act 2006 Act enables the registration of some of those commons which failed, for specified reasons, to be registered under the Commons Registration Act 1965.  This has been brought into force in nine registration areas in England, but the deadline has now passed for applications in seven of them.  Applications can still be made in North Yorkshire and Cumbria until 15 March 2027, and throughout Wales until 4 May 2032.  However, landowners can apply throughout England for land to be removed from the registers.

(3) Town and village greens are land where the public has enjoyed 20 years informal use without permission or challenge.  A landowner may voluntarily dedicate a town or village green without such evidence.  Once registered, the land is protected from development by section 12 of the Inclosure Act 1857 and section 29 of the Commons Act 1876, and local people have legal rights of recreation there in perpetuity.

(4) On 26 December 2024 the government announced that it will repeal the cut-off for recording public paths, originally set at 1 January 2026 in England and Wales, but amended (in 2023) to 1 January 2031 in England.  The Welsh government has also pledged to repeal the cut-off.  The effect of this cut-off would be to extinguish the public’s rights on countless highways which are not yet recorded on the definitive maps.

(5) On 31 January 2023 the government promised that, within five years, ‘the public will benefit from a new commitment to access green space or water within a 15-minute walk from their home, such as woodlands, wetlands, parks and rivers’.

Related Posts