Dartmoor Wild Camping To Continue Under New Agreement

Following the court ruling last week that no rights to wild camp existed under historic laws permitting access for ‘recreation’, it was thought that w …

By stwhannah

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as I posted on the other thread.

permissive rights are better than no rights but leaves a bit of a sour taste.

I hope the appeal goes ahead still and this isn’t an attempt by the landowners & DNPA to spike it.

from righttoroam: https://www.instagram.com/right.2roam/

Our response to the supposed ‘deal’ between Dartmoor National Park Authority and (as yet undisclosed) major landowners RE: Wild Camping.

Tl;dr: It’s a stitch up.

The proposed deal replaces long held rights with ‘permissive access’, which can be withdrawn at any time, entirely at the whims of the landowners.

We have also been told that ‘permission’ to wild camp will also involve some form of public payment to major landowners.

Many of these landowners already receive hundreds of thousands of pounds from the public via subsidies.

Right to Roam will not accept any agreement based on permissive rights. We have to end the hold this patronising, feudal system has over our access nature.

We will not accept our rights being stripped away in exchange for a pat on the head.

We will respond in further detail as more information is available.

As the article says an erotion of the historic right to wild camp. Not that the local bye laws allowed cycling on the majority of the National Park anyway, the rights were for those accessing the park by foot or horse not on a bike.

Will now be left with a guessing game where wild camping will be allowed and landowners will I expect move on anyone they want at anytime.

There is a petition for what it’s worth, when MP is taking ‘donations’ from investors buying up land on Dartmoor and blocking access. Maybe better than nothing

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/631241

 

 

I’d sign the petition if it was better worded. The problem is that once a petition gets rejected it makes similar petitions harder, and suggesting that landowners shouldn’t be allowed to own land isn’t going to get far. If it said something like landowners shouldn’t be allowed to prevent public use of wild land that isn’t harmful to the landowner’s use, it would be worth signing.

and obviously the wealthy landowners have to be paid!

 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/19/dartmoor-national-park-to-pay-landowners-to-allow-wild-camping

Amazing that the authority managed to pull this together in a matter of hours after doing the sum total of **** all to increase mountain bike access over the past 25 years.

It’s heading towards a fiefdom scenario.

Has anyone checked whether this association actually speaks for all the Dartmoor landowners who would need to give their royal blessing to wild campers, including the hedge funder who brought the legal action? Unless it covers all the major landowners, it shouldn’t be presented as a solution in this way.

Have we heard anything substantive from major Dartmoor landowners such as the National Trust and the Duchy of Cornwall?

https://www.dartmoor.gov.uk/about-us/about-us-maps/camping-map

updated map.

most of maristow estate owned land removed. remarkably similar to the updates that DNPA proposed last year…

I’m not blessed with a deep knowledge of Dartmoor NP, but comparing that map with this one:

Who owns Dartmoor?

suggests that a large chunk of privately owned open land is excluded. And am I correct in thinking that the biggish land owned by the national park itself around Combestone Tor has been excluded?

Either way, it’s clear from your map that the end result isn’t permission to wild camp responsibly being extended across the national park, and shouldn’t be presented as such.

exactly. and can now be removed at the whim of a landowner.

its better than no access but only just.

Having listened to a piece on Radio 4, it appears that the National Park is paying landownwers for access by the public.

England the land of greedy landowners

I’ve just updated the story with some further information about the payment, and a link to some new info on the National Park’s website.

Paying landowners for the right to have the public camp on their land… smells awfully like that tax break that Cycling UK was having a rant about, where the landowners were supposed to be giving access to land in exchange for tax breaks. Which reminds me, I must ask what’s happening on that front!
https://singletrackworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/the-duke-the-bike-ban-and-the-taxman/

Grr. Harrumph. Mutter. etc.

I’m beginning to think a few heads stuck on pikes might be the only effective solution.

Grr. Harrumph. Mutter. etc.

Completely agree.

Next time I’m on Dartmoor I must give my thanks to the landowners for kindly allowing us serfs a day or two to pitch a flimsy tent on a tiny bit of moor.

What a load of bollocks. The last patch of wild England has been formally fenced off from the peasants. It’s all just a theme park now.

And people talk about rewilding. Lol.

Please ensure you remove your helmet before tugging your forelock.

The French got this sort of bollox sorted about 200 years ago c/o beheading all the aristols.  Wish we’d had the same here. And still do.

Appeal successful

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/31/wild-camping-dartmoor-court-appeal?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

‘However, the appeals court noted that the Dartmoor Commons Act did not mention a “right to roam” but a right to “open-air recreation” if one entered the common on foot or horseback.’

The bikepacking debate is presumably for another day.