A Dartmoor landowner is seeking to overturn a Court of Appeal ruling handed down earlier this year which restored the right to wild camp, following a January 2023 High Court ruling which removed that right.
The case, which will be heard at the Supreme Court next week, is being brought by Alexander Darwall and his wife Diana, owners of the 4,000 acre Blachford Estate.
The couple, who are the sixth largest landowners on Dartmoor, bought the estate in 2011. It extends from land just north of Ivybridge to the Duchy of Cornwall holding at the heart of the moor.
In January last year the Darwalls won a case against Dartmoor National Park Authority when their lawyers successfully argued that provision in the Dartmoor Commons Act 1985 for public “right of access to the commons on foot and on horseback for the purpose of open-air recreation” excluded wild camping.
Following the ruling, thousands of people took part in a protest against the decision, walking from the village of Cornwood to Stall Moor, part of the Darwall’s land.
Six months later Dartmoor National Park Authority, an independent “freestanding local authority”, and campaign group Open Spaces Society won an appeal against the January ruling, restoring the right to wild camp.
Dartmoor is the only place in England where there is a right to camp in open countryside without permission from landowners. In Scotland people have been free to camp on most unenclosed land, whether publicly or privately owned, since 2003.
Wild camping on Dartmoor. Photo: Fern Leigh-Albert.
Campaigners say that, if successful, the case brought by Alexander Darwall, a hedge fund manager who has donated nearly £70,000 to the Conservative Party, UKIP and the Vote Leave campaign, would not only end wild camping on Dartmoor but also significantly set back the broader cause of public access to land and open spaces.
Frankie Gould of campaign group The Stars Are For Everyone, which is focussed on the right to wild camp on Dartmoor, said: “If Darwall wins his case, there will be no further opportunity for appeal.
“Wild camping rights will cease to exist in England, and the continued ability for individuals and groups to sleep under Dartmoor’s stars will be lost.”
Lewis Winks of Right to Roam, a campaign for legislation in England similar to the law that created new public land access rights in Scotland, said: “Restoring wild camping rights to this tiny patch of England is not enough”.
He added: “We’ve seen enough to know that it’s just a matter of time before another Darwall comes along to reduce, exclude and deny access to the places we love.”
Right to Roam says that the proportion of land on Dartmoor with rights to wild camp comprises just 0.2% of the land in England.
The campaign has also found that there are 2,500 areas of land where there is a right to roam but no legal right of access, requiring trespass to reach them.
Campaign rally at Haytor, Dartmoor. Photo: Fern Leigh-Albert.
Campaigners, including from Right to Roam and The Stars Are For Everyone, are to gather outside the Supreme Court in Parliament Square at 11am on Tuesday 8 October, the day of the hearing.
A campaign rally will also take place at Hound Tor, near Bovey Tracey, at 3pm on Sunday 6 October.
Conservation charity Dartmoor Preservation Association is running a crowdfunder to help Dartmoor National Park Authority meet the legal costs of the case, which it says could amount to £400,000.
