Battle for wild camping on Dartmoor continues

A CAMPAIGN organisation will be allowed to play a key role in the next stage of a long running legal battle over wild camping on Dartmoor.

- HERALD REPORTER

The Open Spaces Society has been 'granted permission to intervene' in the backpack camping case when it is heard later this year.

The right to wild camp on Dartmoor is set to be scrutinised by the Supreme Court, after it gave the goahead for two landowners to continue their legal challenge against the practice.

Lawyers for Alexander and Diana Darwall secured permission from the UK's highest court to appeal against a ruling that members of the public have the right to wild camp in Dartmoor National Park.

Mr Darwall and his wife previously brought successful legal action against Dartmoor National Park Authority (DNPA), claiming some campers cause problems to livestock and the environment.

In January last year, a High Court judge ruled that a nearly 40-year-old piece of legislation did not give people the right to pitch tents overnight on the Dartmoor Commons without landowners' permission.

DNPA later asked appeal judges to overturn Sir Julian Flaux's decision, arguing he had the wrong interpretation of a 1985 law over rights of access to the Dartmoor Commons.

In July 2023, the Court of Appeal ruled in DNPA's favour, finding that the law "confers on members of the public the right to rest or sleep on the Dartmoor Commons, whether by day or night and whether in a tent or otherwise" as long as byelaws are followed.