• Home Page
• -
• Environment
• -
• Land and premises
• -
• Common land

Access Tools

Common land is land, usually in private ownership, that has rights of common over it. The main features of common land are that it is generally open, unfenced and remote - particularly in the upland areas of England and Wales. However, there are some lowland areas of common, particularly in the south-east of England, that are important for recreational uses.

Currently, the general public have no rights to go onto common land unless the land is an urban common, or is crossed by public rights of way (and they follow the line of the right of way). However, the government's proposals in the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 to permit public access to open countryside in the future will also include access to common land.

Rights of common can include:

• grazing sheep or cattle (herbage)
• taking peat or turf (turbary)
• taking wood, gorse or furze (estovers)
• taking of fish (piscary)
• eating of acorns or beechmast by pigs (pannage)

The people who are able to exercise the rights listed above are generally known as 'commoners'.

Common Land is protected under several Acts of Parliament:

• The Law of Property Act 1925 (Section 194)
• The Law of Commons Amendment Act 1893 (Section 2)
• National Trust Acts 1907 (Section 29) and 1971 (Section 23)
• Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960 (Section 23)
• Road Traffic Act 1988 (Section 34)

For further information on Common Land in Knowsley, contact the Land Charges section.

A copy of Adobe Acrobat reader is needed to enable access to the PDF document(s) above. If you do not already have this click to Download Adobe Acrobat Reader (Link opens in a new window) now.

To read the PDF document with a screen reader please visit Access Adobe website (Link opens in a new window), which provides useful tools and resources. Adobe also has a free online conversion tool for PDFs.