News Shorts and Other Busyness

Commoners Reject Cash For Land

Squall 11, Autumn 1995, pg. 15.

One hundred and twenty commoners have turned down a £1 million cash offer and are resisting a plan to turn 150 acres of their land into an industrial estate.

The 2,000 acre common, near Bridgend, Mid Glamorgan, has been used for generations by commoners to graze livestock. Ogwr Borough Council have earmarked the site, just off the M4, for industrial use which, they say, will create 1,000 jobs.

Gwyn Williams, the fourth generation of a farming family to graze cattle on the land, said: “There have been many times when they have tried to take the valley from us. We won’t give up without a fight.”

The “many times” included winning a High Court battle to prevent a golf course being built and preventing a Japanese company building a factory in the 1980s.