A CAMPAIGN group that fights to protect open green spaces for the public is celebrating after saving an area of common land in Richmond.

The Open Spaces Society, the leading pressure-group for the protection of green spaces, has welcomed a court order setting aside the removal of common land from Richmond Low Moor following the society’s legal action.

In June last year, North Yorkshire County Council granted an application by the Richmond Burgage Pastures Committee to deregister common land at the old racecourse on Richmond Low Moor.

The application included not only the historic listed grade II grandstand, Zetland stand and isolated judge’s box, but parts of the common surrounding the buildings.

The applicants said that these buildings, once integral to racing on the downs, had significant curtilage which also should be deregistered.

The society objected, because it said that the buildings had not been used for racing since it ended in 1891, and any curtilage they had had in racing days had long since ceased to exist.

Nevertheless, the council granted the application, saying that, ‘the historic use of the buildings provide the only reasonable means of considering the extent of any curtilage.’

The society challenged the outcome, and the council agreed to the decision being quashed by order of the High Court this week.

Speaking on Wednesday, case officer Hugh Craddock said: "The racecourse buildings on Richmond Low Moor are historic, striking, and much in need of rebuild and renovation.

"We have no objection to their being removed from registration as common land—they should not have been registered in the first place.

"But we do object to additional land being removed from the common on the basis of historical speculation as to how it was used on race days in the eighteenth century."

Hugh added: "We showed in our opposition to the deregistration of Blackbushe aerodrome, and now in our defence of Richmond Low Moor, that the rules on deregistration of “curtilage of a building” are to be strictly applied, and not a licence to take common land into private control just because there happens to be a building nearby.

"We expect other landowners to take notice, and to curb their ambition in future applications affecting common land.

"The society has throughout its 157-year history defended common land from private interests and we shall continue to do so."

Matt O’Neill, Assistant Director Growth, Planning and Trading Standards at North Yorkshire County Council, said: “We are disappointed by the decision of the High Court. However, in this case it was considered that the most appropriate way to proceed was to agree a Consent Order to settle the matter without the need for a hearing. The application will now be reconsidered by the authority’s planning committee in due course.”