Environment & Biodiversity

Yateley is special because a large proportion of its land area is common land registered under the 1965 Act. For over a 1,000 years, perhaps thousands of years, the common has been actively managed by the people of Yateley in order that they could graze their farm animals. Today we call the common lowland heath but for centuries the common was known as waste of the manor since it supposedly had minimal agricultural value. But it did have value for grazing stock, particularly for the poorest households. Every single household in the parish had common rights to graze animals, plus the rights to cut turf for burning on their fires, take firewood and so on. These common rights have been jealously guarded by Yateley people right up to the present day.

It is this special form of 'land management' over the centuries, by grazing the common, which has resulted in its very special environmental status today. Much of the common is designated under one of the highest designations of European law. It is a now a Special Protection Area for Wild Birds (SPA). Over 200 hectares of Yateley Common has been designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest since 1979 but the planning authorities gave scant regard to this until the early 1990s.

Things are different today. The authorities are waking up to the international requirement to protect rare habitats such as the Thames Basin Heaths Castle Bottom to Yateley Common Special Protection Area. We are currently awaiting new planning guidance from English Nature which will probably mean that the last housing estate in Yateley has already been built.

The big question now is how we, the present population of 20,000 people living in the middle of a densely populated 'development growth area', can look after a rare ecological area which has been managed for centuries to sustain a population of 2,000 or less in the middle of otherwise barren heath.

It is not an option whether we want to look after it or not. We do not have the option to build a five screen cinema on it, or dig it up for a Olympic swimming pool. We don't even have the option to allow our children to ride motorbikes over it, or even let our dogs run lose in nesting season. There are huge fines for damaging this fragile environment, which will most probably surprise many local people.

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