Andrew Parry-Norton, chair of the Commoners Defence Association (CDA) and a commoner himself, is one of them.
“We’re facing money coming down from London, paying £42,000 to £45,000 an acre. That means properties of over a million pounds. These new people aren’t going to common and most wouldn’t even understand how to look after the land.
“For younger generations of commoners [who inherit land and property], the temptation is there to take the money. Unless we can offer them a financially viable future, with properties they can afford, they’re not going to stay and do this.”
This isn’t a new problem – the CDA itself was set up in 1909 in response to people coming to the area wanting to buy land.
“All the commoners got together as it was a collective problem,” he adds. “There’s nothing like a collective enemy to bring people together. It’s like a trade union to preserve commoning and their rights.
“It’s a constant battle, but it’s our livelihood and it creates what we see in the landscape of the forest right now.”
An accidental commoner
Dr Gale Pettifer is also a commoner, albeit inadvertently. When she bought her property in 2012, she didn’t realise it had common rights until she saw the deeds. She’s enjoyed it so much since that she’s completed a PhD on the politics of “inclosure” in the New Forest.
“This is a completely different way of interacting with livestock,” she says. “You can’t pet them, so I know my ponies, they don’t necessarily know me. Lots of my friends ask what’s the point, but it’s about the conservation of the New Forest and carrying on the tradition. I absolutely love it. It’s taken over my life.”
She agrees that commoning is facing challenges and it’s part of the reason she’s joined in
“It is hugely under threat from the encroachment of leisure and recreation. It was primarily a working landscape; now there’s more and more pressure to become profitable with more and more leisure activities. Housebuilding brings pressures, more cars, more speeding, more pony deaths.
“I realised there must be other properties like mine, and people buy them and don’t exercise these rights. If I don’t, that’s how these things get lost, the rights and the knowledge.”
Inevitably, house prices are part of the conversation.
“If you’re on an average income, you’ve got no chance of buying anything in the Forest.”
