Open Spaces Society calls for speed limit across common land (From Smallholder)

Open Spaces Society calls for speed limit across common land

9:53am Monday 20th July 2009

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The Open Spaces Society,the top pressure-group for common land, has called on the Department for Transport to recommend to local authorities that they introduce a 40-mile-per-hour speed limit on all roads crossing unfenced common land in England.

The society was responding to the department’s consultation paper ‘A Safer Way: Making Britain’s Roads the Safest in the World’.

Says the society’s general secretary, Kate Ashbrook: ‘People need to know that, when they drive across a common, this is somewhere special, a place that goes back to medieval times, which should be treated with respect. ‘Commons have remained unchanged for centuries, and are truly unspoilt, natural habitats. But if the habitat is to be maintained, it probably needs grazing, which is not possible unless the traffic is slowed, or the road is fenced.

‘Fencing is an eyesore, and restricts people’s access onto the common on foot and horseback. It’s much better to slow the traffic and protect the natural landscape. So a 40-mile-per-hour speed limit, properly enforced, could be the solution. ‘We hope the Department for Transport will advocate such a speed limit on all unfenced commons,’ Kate concludes.

The Open Spaces Society (formally the Commons, Open Spaces and Footpaths Preservation 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.

Common land is (a) land subject to the rights of others (usually owners of nearby properties), to graze animals, collect wood and turf, etc, or (b) waste land of the manor with no rights. There is a public right to walk on all commons under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 and a right to ride on many of them. The commons are recorded on registers held by the county or unitary authorities. They can only be removed from the register in limited circumstances.If anyone wants to erect a building, fence or other work on a common, he must get the consent of the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, under section 38 of the Commons Act 2006. The Open Spaces Society is a statutory consultee for all such applications, in recognition of its particular expertise in this area.