Rights of common and public rights of access

What is common land?

The term ‘common land’ usually includes all land which is subject to rights of common, ie the rights which one or more ‘commoners’ may have to take the natural produce of that land, in common with each other and with the owner of the land. In most statutes, the term ‘common’ is defined more widely as including any land subject to be inclosed under the Inclosure Acts and any town or village green.

Halsbury’s Laws of England defines a ‘right of common’ as:

‘a right, which one or more persons may have, to take or use some portion of that which another man's soil naturally produces. Such part of that produce as the commoners do not lawfully take belongs to the owner of the soil. The right is in the nature of a profit à prendre, and so must be distinguished from an easement, which, although a right over another man's land, confers no right to participation in the produce of that land.’

Members of the public do not have common law rights to wander at will over commons

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