A Look At The Dartmoor Wild Camping Affair

Picture from my long out-of-print 1996 book Classic Hill Walks

The court decision that there is no legal right to wild camp on Dartmoor without the landowners permission is, to say the least, disappointing as the Dartmoor Commons was the only area in England and Wales where this was not the case (Scotland is very different and has much more enlightened legislation). Until this judgement the Dartmoor National Park assumed that the rights to open-air recreation in the Dartmoor Commons Act 1985 included wild camping. Sir Julian Flaux, the chancellor of the high court, doesn’t think that wild camping is recreation though, it’s ‘a facility for its enjoyment ……… the open-air recreation in which they are engaged is the hiking not the wild camping’.  This of course completely misunderstands the nature of backpacking, that the walking and camping are an integral part of a whole not independent activities. When I go on a long walk the camping is just as important as the hiking.

The case was brought by Alexander Darwall, a hedge fund manager who owns the small Blachford Estate on the edge of Dartmoor, which has a farm and offers pheasant shooting and deer stalking. Darwall argues that the right to wild camp never existed. The judge agreed with him. The ruling doesn’t just apply to his land though but to the whole of Dartmoor. Pannage Man, an expert on commons and rights of way who worked on preparing and implementing access legislation under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, has an excellent detailed look at the history of statutory access to open country on his blog, saying the court has missed the point in this case.

Unsurprisingly there has been a swift backlash against the ruling from many organisations and individuals including the BMC, which describes it as a huge blow for the outdoor community, and even the DofE, which says in a pinned Tweet that it’s deeply disappointed. The Great Outdoors magazine has an excellent piece on the response from various organisations and another on reactions from seven outdoor enthusiasts for whom camping on Dartmoor is important. The Observer has a good piece on the affair too. There will be protests. Dartmoor National Park is considering an appeal, which I hope goes ahead.  The Labour Party has said that when next in power it will expand the right to roam and wild camp across England. Maybe the whole affair will backfire on Darwall. I hope so.

What does the ruling mean for wild camping in general in England and Wales? In practical terms, very little. It’s the message it sends out that matters, the message that landowners can do this. What does that say to young people and anyone thinking wild camping sounds attractive? Where does this place organisations such as DofE who run wild camping expeditions? Discouraging access to nature and outdoor adventure is the last thing we should be doing.

Whilst there’s no legal right to wild camp there’s no law expressly forbidding it either. It would come under trespass legislation and isn’t a criminal offence but a civil matter. A landowner can ask you to leave and could sue you if you refuse though I can find no cases of this happening. 

Wild camp in the Lake District

Of course many people wild camp regularly without asking the landowners permission. In some areas such as the Lake District and Snowdonia this is accepted away from roads and habitations. In other places discretion is needed. I’ve never camped on Dartmoor (I’ve only been there once, back in 1994) but when I lived in England I used to wild camp regularly, including walking from Land’s End to John O'Groats and camping almost every night. I never asked permission to camp, no-one ever objected. In fact just once in hundreds and hundreds of nights wild camping did a landowner approach me and they said I could stay as long as I left the next morning, which was my intention anyway.

Campers causing damage and leaving rubbish has come up as a reason for the ruling. Whilst this is a problem in some, mostly roadside, places, it’s not a factor in this case. Dartmoor National Park defines wild camping as a ‘no impact’ camping out of sight of roads or settlements and says it does not include overnight stays in vehicles, large tents or large groups. Anyway, the real threats to nature come from industry, commercial forestry, farming, and shooting. How good is Darwall’s pheasant shoot for the environment?

Viewed from Scotland this looks an old and out of date debate. We went through this twenty years ago. It’s time England and Wales caught up.