Hello, I love walking in the countryside. In recent years, I've done some long-distance walking - across Spain (took 3 months), another 200 mile walk in Spain, the full length of Hadrian's Wall, Bridlington to South Shields along the coast. But, closer to home, I enjoy short walks on our local registered commons and, in particular, one called Newlands Corner - a beautiful place with great views across the North Downs, woodland (one of the four most important sites in western Europe for ancient yews (some over 1,000 years old)) and the habitat for endangered species like the hazel dormouse, Roman snails, six species of bats, the small blue butterfly and hedgehogs - as so many commons are. I have become very involved in a campaign to save the Newlands Corner common from commercial exploitation by Surrey County Council. Through that, our campaign group, Save Newlands Corner, which is totally made up of local residents, and has no affiliations (other than membership of the Open Spaces Society), has discovered that the law supposedly protecting the commons of England and Wales, section 38 etc of the Commons Act 2006, has serious deficiencies. So, we have started a petition to get the law changed. However, many petitions fail to give sufficient background as to their origins and purposes, so we have produced a detailed background note and a link to the petition on our website. To reach the website just tap Save Newlands Corner into Google. Please consider signing the petition and circulating the details to friends, family and colleagues. We are trying to protect all of the registered commons in England and Wales from exploitation to preserve them as natural places for people, amongst them a huge number of walkers, to visit. Any help you can give us would be truly appreciated.