Lizard Downs gets protected status after 100-year wait

Lizard Downs has official "common land" status

Cornwall's Lizard Downs has a new layer of protection and the public are now officially free to walk there after it was awarded "common land" status.

The area, 116 hectares of open moorland in west Cornwall, was recognised as common land back in 1880.

In the years since, however, its registration was waylaid by objections and missed deadlines.

Conservation body the Open Spaces Society said the moorland now finally had "additional protection".

Frances Kerner, the society's commons re-registration officer, spearheaded the work to register the area.

She said: "I am delighted that the recognition of the land as common land well over 100 years ago has now been acknowledged.

"While the land is managed by Natural England and is part of the Lizard National Nature Reserve, its registration as common land confers additional protection and a right for the public to walk there for all time."

'Three-year deadline'

The society said Lizard Downs was recognised as common land after a government act in 1880 with a view to divide it into fields but this never happened due to lack of funding.

Under a new act in1965, it was again on the cusp of being registered as common land but the application was rejected by a commons commissioner within a three-year deadline.

The Commons Act 2006 reopened the door and, using evidence from the 1880 registration, the society applied to Cornwall Council to register the area.

It was able to prove the space was "open, uncultivated and unoccupied".

The council agreed that the land met the criteria for registration and added it to the common land register, the society said.

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