Kate Ashbrook from The Open Spaces Society

OPEN spaces used by the community should be registered as town or village greens to protect them from development before “it’s too late”, a campaigner has warned.

The Open Spaces Society (OSS) is one of the organisations to have signed up to the Outdoors for All Manifesto, which campaigns for all people to live within a 15-minute walk of a “green or blue space” – a right that some 19.6 million people currently do not enjoy in the UK.

According to OSS member Kate Ashbrook, the manifesto has been designed to deliver a “message to politicians, particularly in the lead-up to the election, that access to green space, health and wellbeing, and the benefits to the local economy are all really important and really worth investing money in”.

The manifesto is supported by 35 organisations, including the National Trust and the Wildlife Trusts.

Among other measures, the manifesto calls on politicians to extend public open access rights and repeal the cut-off date for registering historic rights of way. Ms Ashbrook points out that it is currently government policy to ensure all people live within 15 minutes’ walk of a green space. “It was announced very nearly a year ago – 11 months ago – they’ve given themselves five years, and yet, what has happened?… I’m not seeing any action.”

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According to Ms Ashbrook, the OSS – an organisation that successfully campaigned to save Hampstead Heath in the 1860s – “said very early on one way of achieving [the 15-minute walk goal] is by registering land as a town or village green”.

“A town or village green is land where local people have enjoyed informal recreation for 20 years without challenge and without permission, or it is land which a friendly, nice landowner has dedicated for that purpose.

“The point about village greens is that once they are registered by the London Borough of Camden, or wherever, then the land is protected from development.”

She added: “Local people should in their communities be thinking about all the land they use and enjoy and take for granted, and think: can we register that? Because once it’s threatened with development, it’s too late. So you’ve got to do it before.”

Communities seeking to protect their open spaces can register a town or village green with the council as long as they can prove it has been in use for 20 years. Privately owned land can also be registered as a green, although landowners do have the opportunity to object.

Ms Ashbrook said improving people’s “nature connectedness” is vital to ensuring the protection of outdoor spaces. “Nature, we know, is being depleted… but the population as a whole isn’t going to argue to defend all that unless they know about it, so they need to know about [nature] first.”