Wild Campers lose on Dartmoor

Bollox

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/13/dartmoor-estate-landowner-alexander-darwall-court-case-right-to-camp

I think it the fact he’s a hedge fund manager that really pisses me off – oh I hate hedge fund managers almost as much as I hate private equity managers

A few mass overnight picnics required there I think!

The case hinged on whether wild camping counts as recreation. The act under which people assumed the right to camp does not expressly mention the activity, but says visitors are free to enjoy outdoor recreation if they reach the moors on foot or horseback. Darwall’s lawyers argued that camping is not recreation, but that the law allows for activities such as walking and picnicking.

I’ve not camped on that bit of moor before. I might now.

Same, not been to dartmoor, time to go camping and maybe leave a shit on his doorstep

I very much doubt he lives on dartmoor..

Hopefully it will go to appeal….

As a regular early morning fell runner in the Peak District I come across loads of folk wild camping and I have to say (controversially!) I have some sympathy with the landowner. If Dartmoor is anything like the Peak then the amount of shit left behind by folk wild camping is appalling. Always the minority that spoil it for those who treat the land with respect but it infuriates me the amount of rubbish left behind and damage done to trees and plants.

Sounds like a grade A ****. Since when did the fact that wild camping is illegal stop anybody wild camping? Oh and good luck trying to police it, its near impossible. So just camp anyway, what are they going to do? They’ll ask you to leave, you say its not happening, they may call the police, who won’t attend when they can’t even get to serious crimes so nothing will really change.

What a **** of a man, eh?

This is what it’s really about:

Blachford estate on southern Dartmoor, offers pheasant shoots, deerstalking and holiday rentals on his land.

You can go on there… as long as you pay.

Oh, want another reason to detest him?

Darwall has donated £89,999 to the right-wing UK Independence Party, the Anti-EU Vote Leave campaign, and the Conservatives between 2014 and 2019

What a surprise!

Oh, and his main businesses is exploring investment opportunities… In the EU.😡

As a regular early morning fell runner in the Peak District I come across loads of folk wild camping and I have to say (controversially!) I have some sympathy with the landowner. If Dartmoor is anything like the Peak then the amount of shit left behind by folk wild camping is appalling. Always the minority that spoil it for those who treat the land with respect but it infuriates me the amount of rubbish left behind and damage done to trees and plants.

This +1

It’ll have zero impact on bike/backpacking, because if you’re doing it sensibly and responsibly no one will even know you’re there to call the police on you in the first place. It’ll hopefully curtail the people arriving like it’s Thursday afternoon at Glastonbury.

Timothy Leader, arguing for the national park, said the law was purposely written to be as wide as possible to include all kinds of recreational activities. He added that there was a list of proscribed activities, such as killing animals or lighting fires, and camping was not on it.

Apparently killing animals isn’t allowed, except it is as a paying guest of a Hedge Fund manager.

It’ll have zero impact on bike/backpacking, because if you’re doing it sensibly and responsibly no one will even know you’re there to call the police on you in the first place.

Depends, if I’m bike packing on my own or with a mate I’m fairly unbothered as we can just flick them the V’s and ride off if confronted, but if I have my kids with me the idea of being prodded awake by one of Darwall’s lackeys does not appeal.

The ‘leave it trashed’ crew will just ignore any ban anyway.

No doubt the gamekeepers will be out and about looking for a few weeks in the springtime, and after that then it will be business as usual.

Anyhow, if you take a small square of tartan blanket and a flask with you, lay it out in front of the porch, then you are merely using a picnicking shelter. 🙂

Predictable continuation of the current project for the rich to loot the country, turning public places into private domains (see also: most of London)

Depends, if I’m bike packing on my own or with a mate I’m fairly unbothered as we can just flick them the V’s and ride off if confronted, but if I have my kids with me the idea of being prodded awake by one of Darwall’s lackeys does not appeal.

But then they would have to find you, in the dark, in the middle of thousands of acres of moorland and forest.

Unless his gamekeepers are more Tom Clancy than Tom Sharpe that seems vanishingly unlikely.

The strange thing with the ruling is that for the CRoW act (2000), camping is listed as a specific exclusion, whereas it doesn’t appear as an exclusion in the act covering public access to Dartmoor.

Caroline Lucas is currently also trying to get an amendment through Parliament which would remove camping from the list is exclusions… but by this ruling means it wouldn’t matter if it was listed in the exclusions or not as now camping is not an outdoor recreational activity.

Now, as IANAL I could be very wrong on this, but I was under the impression that the laws in this country were permissive, in that everything was allowed except those things which are detailed as being forbidden/illegal. This ruling would seem to go against that as well.

And the law now has new teeth to make sure his (The Landowners) rights are upheld.

Trespassers who set up camp illegally on other people’s land or in local communities could face up to three months in prison from Tuesday 28 June, as a new criminal offence becomes law.

Cracking down on antisocial people causing misery by setting up illegal camps and refusing to remove their vehicles, delivers on a key government manifesto commitment.

Made possible by the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, on Tuesday police in England and Wales will be given new powers to limit the harms caused by such unauthorised encampments and new statutory guidance will be published.

Police will now be able to ban trespassers from returning to a patch of land for a year, rather than just three months.

And the definition of harm will be broadened, so that police can take more decisive action to tackle unauthorised encampments when necessary.

They will be able to intervene where unauthorised encampments are causing environmental damage or distress to the community – not just the landowner.

Home Secretary Priti Patel said:

No one should have unchecked rights to trespass on other people’s land, or cause misery in communities without consequence.

The position in law is now very clear – trespassers must move their vehicles when asked to do so, or face jail time and a hefty fine.

Illegal encampments cause misery for thousands of people: they damage and pollute environments and often result in local residents facing unacceptable intimidation on their own doorstep.

Delivering on our manifesto commitments, this government will always stand on the side of the law-abiding majority and on the side of the police.

Under the new guidance, the harms potentially caused by unauthorised encampments could include – but are not limited to – instances where:

there is excessive littering, noise or smell – including from bonfire smoke
a local resident is verbally abused or intimidated, or fears leaving their house to avoid walking past an encampment
local communities are prevented from accessing sports fields, parks or car parks
property on the land, or the land itself has been damaged – including farmland
For the first time, unauthorised encampments on highways will be covered, as well as on public and private land.

The new criminal offence will be punishable by a prison sentence of up to 3 months, or a fine of up to £2,500, or both, and/or seizure of the vehicle.

The conditions of the offence are clear – if people leave when asked to by the police or landowner, they will not risk having their vehicle seized, a fine or prison time.

Statistics showed that the number of authorised traveller pitches had increased by 41% from January 2010 to January 2020 and the government continues its work to provide even more authorised sites for travellers to reside upon. This includes a new fund recently launched that will provide £10 million of capital grant funding for 2022/2023, to support local authorities in England in improving accommodation provision for travellers.

This +1

It’ll have zero impact on bike/backpacking, because if you’re doing it sensibly and responsibly no one will even know you’re there to call the police on you in the first place. It’ll hopefully curtail the people arriving like it’s Thursday afternoon at Glastonbury.

I tend to agree. The trash-everything crowd probably knew Dartmoor wild camping was not illegal and took advantage. Is there the same problem on Exmoor for example?

That said, the system of land ownership and management in this country isn’t right.

Anyone got a guillotine in good working order?

Hiya,

To be honest will it matter? there is thousands of acres of land to monitor.
The wild camping fraternity should just all camp up there one weekend just to prove a point.

BR
JeZ

If Dartmoor is anything like the Peak then the amount of shit left behind by folk wild camping is appalling. Always the minority that spoil it for those who treat the land with respect

Very much my view.

Caroline Lucas on BBC Radio 4 lunchtime news just now, brilliant stuff, making the case for protecting access rights.

They can’t police wild camping as is it and actively do not. When has anyone ever heard of the police going off into the mountains or countryside to move wild campers on? Only time I’ve heard of that was in lockdown and they were few and far between and usually idiots nears roads etc.

The police won’t care or have the time or resources to deal with it. You can make all the new laws you want but the reality is that wild camping in remote or out of the way areas will continue unaffected as no one really cares.

Oh and bringing up an example of some hard of thinking leaving crap behind in the lakes is the exception that proves the rule. Idiots leave rubbish anywhere and everywhere, doing anything and everything, does that mean everyone should do nothing and stay at home? Try and engage the old brain before typing narrow minded drivel like that.

It’s not the cops you have to worry about, it’s the meathead gamekeepers employed by the land owners who will bully, intimidate, threaten and assault to serve their masters wishes.

It’s not the cops you have to worry about, it’s the meathead gamekeepers employed by the land owners who will bully, intimidate, threaten and assault to serve their masters wishes.

Every game keeper I’ve ever seen (not many) have been old duffers who couldn’t intimidate a kitten.
Plus they’ve got to find you first in a huge area which would take an army to monitor and patrol.

It’s not the cops you have to worry about, it’s the meathead gamekeepers employed by the land owners who will bully, intimidate, threaten and assault to serve their masters wishes.

TBF, the vast majority of gamekeepers I have had contact with are perfectly pleasant and pretty restrained even when I and my group have been ‘wrong’.
I too have sympathy for those who manage land and have to deal with the minority of fools. However, the landowners and managers then do tar most of us with that brush in my experience.
This though is an erosion of rights, something we need to be very careful of.

this particular area, they have already made access harder for the masses by closing off the car park. its now quite a hike into this bit of land.

its only a small part of dartmoor but the worry is the precendence it will set.

fly campers are easy to find anyway, they are normally <100yds from their car.

To me its absolutely about intimidation and erosion of rights.

No, as a middle class middleaged 6ft white guy I’m unlikely to get fined or roughed up – I may even (as has happened in the past) get told “you are alright this time but don’t camp/walk/ride/eat here again”

But thats bullshit. I don’t want to do anything ‘under sufference’ – I already feel like I share the roads by grace of the motorist, constantly othered in the press – yet people come out and actually spectate morons drifting round our local roundabouts at breakneck speeds. Walkers and forest rangers regard me with suspicion when riding on the bridleway, making me feel barely tolerated yet some fool with three badly behaved dogs off the lead isn’t given a glance. When kayaking I’m the bad guy – not the people killing the fish and leaving loops of nylon hanging from trees to entrap waterfowl…….

And its the same here – you can storm across the land on horseback trampling everything underfoot and making public rights of way a quagmire,loudly blow the hell out of stuff with guns leaving cartridges and carcasses littering the ground but woebetide anyone who wants to quietly contemplate the sunrise from a bivvybag – for they are the real enemy of the countryside

For all that it’s got a bit too much hippie woo in it for my taste, there are some good strong arguments about access rights in this book and it’s worth a read: https://singletrackworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/the-trespassers-companion-a-field-guide-to-reclaiming-what-is-already-ours/

I agree on a practical level, it may not make much difference. That’s not the point. Manouveres like this send out the wrong message to urbanites; they are not welcome in the countryside.
Only a few people can or will go hunting or shooting and stay in a glamping lodge – that’s got nothing to do with enjoying nature.
Education, training and enforcement are the answer.
So, don’t pick up other people’s litter – make them pick it up!

So just camp anyway, what are they going to do? They’ll ask you to leave, you say its not happening, they may call the police, who won’t attend when they can’t even get to serious crimes so nothing will really change.

Yeah right, I’d argue that they’d turn up mob-handed for an easy pull. Armed home invasion? Forgeddabouddit, chasing dog-walkers round the peaks with a drone? All part of the service!

Yeah right, I’d argue that they’d turn up mob-handed for an easy pull. Armed home invasion? Forgeddabouddit, chasing dog-walkers round the peaks with a drone? All part of the service!

Having several police officer friends in Derbyshire, the Police really haven’t the resources or the inclination.

News story here with some quotes from people, for completeness. https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/wild-campers-lose-on-dartmoor/ But please do carry on the chat/debate here!

woebetide anyone who wants to quietly contemplate the sunrise from a bivvybag – for they are the real enemy of the countryside

@winston your excellent post deserves to be widely disseminated not limited to STW.

Wait – we’re supposed to feel sympathy for the organisations that have fought at every step to oppose improved access for mountain biking (banned on Dartmoor for twenty years) now that its finally bitten them on the arse?

Interesting one this.
Illegal campers who a site in a mess will continue as they have no respect for clamping in a national park.
My question: how will this ruling impact the ten tors competition which relies on wild camping? This may or may not be of consequence depending on where the land is. My assumption is the land owner will grant permission or not. Or with suitable compensation

I was initially under the impression the court case was just for his land…. Is the ruling actually for all of Dartmoor NP?

Is the ruling actually for all of Dartmoor NP?

Yes. Of course other landowners can choose to still allow it but its not not allowed by default.

“This land is our land…”