Campaigners for continued access to wild camping on Dartmoor have announced two rallies to coincide with the upcoming Supreme Court hearing over access rights in the English National Park.
Protest group The Stars are for Everyone announced that the rallies will take place on Dartmoor on the 6th of October and in London outside the Supreme Court on the 8th of October while the case is heard inside.
"Once again our right to sleep under the Dartmoor's stars is under threat," writes the organization in a press release.
Unlike US National Parks, which are on public land, Britain's National Parks are largely privately owned. However, since 1985 it had been assumed that camping was permitted in the 368 square-mile park under the Dartmoor Commons Act legislation. The Act states a right to “open-air recreation” if someone enters the common on foot or horseback and it's long been considered legal to wild camp on designated areas as long as it’s done responsibly, in small numbers and you only stay for a night or two.
All that changed in October 2022, when landowners Alexander Darwall, a hedge fund manager, and his wife Diana, who own the 4,000-acre Blachford Estate in the south of the popular park challenged the public’s right to camp on their land. The Darwalls bought the Blachford estate in 2013 and use it for holiday rentals, deer stalking and pheasant shooting.
In January 2023, Chancellor of the High Court Julian Flaux ruled that, despite decades of use, campers had no legal right to wild camp on Darwall's land without his permission. The judgement effectively stripped UK campers and backpackers of the last remaining space in England and neighboring Wales where they were free to wild camp. Flaux reached his decision based on an interpretation of camping being non-recreational and "simply sleeping."
Six months later, in July 2023, that ruling was successfully overturned following an appeal launched by The Open Spaces Society (OSS), Britain's oldest national conservation body, founded in 1865. Following that decision people got their camping tents out and headed out onto Dartmoor once again. But that wasn't the end of the story.
In January of this year, the Darwalls once again asked the Supreme Court to hear their case against wild campers on their land. That request was granted, and the OSS has been given permission to intervene in the upcoming appeal, according to their legal representatives at Francis Taylor Building. Kate Ashbrook, general secretary of the charitable company, describes the battle as a "vital fight," saying:
"It could have far-reaching implications as it will influence the attitude of other landowners."
According to the Supreme Court's procedures, the decision reached at the upcoming court date will be final, meaning that it will either establish wild camping as a permanent right on Dartmoor, or ban it permanently.
Finding it difficult to keep up? Pete Bushnell, a trainee mountain leader and host of the Instagram account @hike.outside recently created this educational video explaining exactly what's happened so far, and detailing what he believes is at stake.
