Kate Ashbrook

The Queen’s focus on village greens in tomorrow’s Christmas message has delighted access campaigners.

Open Spaces Society boss Kate Ashbrook, who two years ago shared a place in a green list with the Queen and was dubbed the ‘high-priestess of the countryside’, welcomed the monarch’s recognition of the importance of the country’s numerous open spaces for sport and exercise.

The Queen will say in her Christmas Day broadcast: “In the parks of towns and cities, and on village greens up and down the country, countless thousands of people every week give up their time to participate in sport and exercise of all sorts, or simply encourage others to do so.”

OSS general secretary Ms Ashbrook said: “We have long argued that village greens are of fundamental importance to local communities, in town and country. We are delighted that the Queen recognises this too.

“Yet these precious open spaces are under constant threat of development and encroachment.

“You can register land as a green if it has been used by local people for 20 years, for informal sport and recreation without being stopped and without asking permission. Once registered, the land is safe from development.

“So our Christmas message is: get out and there and enjoy your green, and if it is not registered, make it your New Year resolution to get on with it.”