Another common land thread .....

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 mike123 14 Jul 2019

I know common land questions have come up before and as usual I know there are people here who know lots about this. A small piece of land ( quartet of an acre at most ) that was once upon a time " common " is now 'owned " by the parish council . . I want to find out as much as I can about this process , what rights once existed , what rights the parish council can do away with ,( if any or all etc ) . I have very little knowledge about this so anything may be of help . . I have a feeling there will certain words or phrases regarding the land that will be usefull for me to find out . What are they ? I don't really want to go into the back story yet before I've done a bit of digging regarding who owns the land etc , but I think I will be posting about the story as it unfolds . And possibly buying some sheep to exercise my grazing rights if they still exist .

 toad 15 Jul 2019
In reply to mike123:

Talk to the open spaces society oss.org.uk as they are a statutory consultee on all commons related matters and very vociferous in defending against changes like enclosure

OP mike123 15 Jul 2019
In reply to toad:

thanks.

I'm  just doing a bit a googling to try and find the history of ownership of the land in question and what rights , if any existed before the parish council took ownership . interesting stuff . 

OP mike123 15 Jul 2019
In reply to Bulls Crack:

thanks. just what I had been looking for earlier on.

OP mike123 16 Jul 2019
In reply to mike123:

a bit more detail to see if anybody has any ideas or can suggest sources of info. the parish council acquired title to  the piece of land in question about 10 years ago because " no one  owned it ". I learnt from somebody elses thread a few years ago that all land is owned by somebody even so called common land. I think that way back in the mists of time (400 years ago maybe) all of the land in the village would have been part of a large common and as over time this was carved up the piece of land in question has been missed. if so up until the parish council acquired  it would have still been part of the common and hence have certain rights attached to it ? unless the parish council had carried out due process to have these rights removed ? all of this is pure conjecture on my part but i really would like to find out.

 ian caton 17 Jul 2019
In reply to mike123:

My understanding is that common land means different people have different rights over it, which will be written in their deeds. So for a typical moorland type situation, the owner will usually own the shooting rights, a collection of farmers will have precise rights to graze certain numbers and types of animal each. They or others may have written rights to take peat and timber. So good luck with that. 

Post edited at 11:45
1
 timjones 17 Jul 2019
In reply to mike123:

A lot of common land is owned by someone and people local to the common will have commoners rights.  These may be to grade a set number of cattle, sheep, ponies or even geese or to take firewood,  a crop of hay or maybe bracken for livestock bedding.

It would be unusual for the wider public that live even just a short distance from a common to have any comments rights.

 timjones 17 Jul 2019
In reply to mike123:

It would seem a bit perverse to commit yourself to the 365 day a year responsibility of keeping sheep merely to exercise an ancient right.

OP mike123 17 Jul 2019
In reply to timjones: 

Thanks to all above for input . As is often the case there is it a bit of a story which at the moment I don't want to go into as I'm not sure how it will play out and don't want to prejudice the outcome or not give the relevant party time to respond . I'm just trying to find out what my next move might be . but rest assured tim I m not really going  to buy  some sheep . I may loan a few though and have a mate of a mate who has just let me know he will do so should I require them . Of course I might not bother with the sheep and just go straight to organising a horse fair . 


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