Open Access Land in Wales: Common Land with Higher Rights (CRoW Act)

Natural Resources Wales provides a geospatial dataset of Common Land in Wales with a higher statutory right of public access under the Countryside and Rights of Way (CRoW) Act. The data includes Urban Commons, Commons with Deeds for Access, and land under the 1899 Commons Act, but excludes the separate Registered Common Land dataset. Digitization for all Wales was completed in 2014.

Use Cases

• Map public access rights for recreation planning based on the statutory categories of Common Land.
• Analyze land management and conservation areas by integrating this data with Open Country and Public Forests datasets.
• Support legal and enforcement activities related to the CRoW Act based on the defined land designations.

Strengths

• Data is tied to specific statutory legislation (the CRoW Act), providing a clear legal basis.
• Digitization was completed for the entire geographic area of Wales.
• Dataset is provided under the OGL-UK-3.0 license, facilitating reuse.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Government Digital Service, originating from Natural Resources Wales (formerly Countryside Council for Wales).

Collection Method

Digitization of statutory land designations under Section 4 of the CRoW Act.

Time Range

Digitization year is 2014.

Freshness

Last updated date is unknown.

Geography

Wales and the Elan Valley Estate.