Celebration rally on Dartmoor - as campaigners call for access rights to be extended
Campaigners will gather at Haytor from midday
Days after winning the legal right to wild camp on Dartmoor, campaigners are today gathering on the moor to call for rights to be extended elsewhere.
On Wednesday The Supreme Court dismissed a challenge by landowners to restrict access on the grounds of litter and the potential for interfering with animals.
Dartmoor is the last place in the country where wild camping is permitted, with campaigners warning the judgement could have restricted much more than wild camping had it been upheld.
Lewis Winks from The Stars are for Everyone campaign group, said: "We will be holding a rally on Dartmoor from midday on bank holiday Monday 26th of May to call on the government to protect and extend public access to the countryside.
"Darwall’s outrageous efforts to extinguish the right to wild camp on Dartmoor have revealed how broken our system of access is in England.
"We need the Government to pass new right to roam legislation to defend and extend the public’s right of responsible access to nature.
"The verdict is a relief and huge win for the thousands of people who have campaigned so hard to retain the right to wild camp on Dartmoor.
“However, Dartmoor remains the only place in England and Wales where the public has a right to wild camp, and can lawfully experience the magic of sleeping under the stars. And the fact that one wealthy landowner, Alexander Darwall, was able to temporarily remove a right that belonged to everyone demonstrates how England’s system of access is utterly broken.
“The Government must now pass a new Right to Roam Act to defend and extend the public’s rights to access nature in England. Ministers must urgently change the law - not only to protect the right to wild camp on Dartmoor from future challenges, but to expand the public’s right of responsible access to the wider countryside.”
Green councillor for Heavitree in Exeter, Catherine Rees, who has supported the campaign for wild camping on Dartmoor and joined the rally outside the Supreme Court last October, said:
“I am so delighted and relieved by this decision. The Supreme Court ruling will be welcomed by so many people - those who want to be able to wild camp on Dartmoor and those who support the right to do so.
“I hope this is a turning point and the government now passes a Right to Roam Act, to protect and extend public rights of responsible access to nature across England, as they promised before the election. I would love people across the country to have the same right to connect with nature and sleep under the stars as we have on Dartmoor.”
Five justices unanimously ruled on Wednesday that the term "recreation" in the law governing the use of the national park in Devon - the only national park where wild camping is allowed - is used "without qualification as to the form which it should take".
The couple said they were "disappointed" by the judgment, while the chief executive of the Dartmoor National Park Authority (DNPA), which opposed the challenge, said he was "delighted and relieved".
Following the ruling, Guy Shrubsole, co-founder of campaign group Right to Roam, said he was "elated" and called for changes to the law around wild camping.
He said: "What I think this case has also really highlighted is how unusual and odd it is that Dartmoor is the only place where there is a legal right to wild camp in England and Wales.
"Over in Scotland, over the border, there is a right to wild camp almost everywhere, and so that's why we are now really keen for the Government to take note of this, of a huge amount of public interest this case has stirred up, to see the public support for the right to wild camp and to extend the law.
"We want them to change the law now, so that actually people in England can enjoy the right to wild camp, the right to roam over much more of our beautiful countryside."
He continued: "Thousands on thousands of people wild camp every year on Dartmoor, without anybody knowing that they're there, without leaving a trace, and often picking up litter afterwards.
"Often the trace that is left is the trace on people's hearts and minds and souls when they undertake this wonderful experience of sleeping under the stars on Dartmoor and seeing the world."
Calls for changes to the law were echoed by South Devon Liberal Democrat MP Caroline Voaden and Bolton West Labour MP Phil Brickell, who both attended the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
Ms Voaden said she was "absolutely thrilled" with the decision, but added that the public only have access to 8% of land in the UK.
"It just proves that the right to access is fundamental for people to be able to live a healthy, happy life," she said.
"It's not just a nice-to-have - we need access to nature, and we've now seen that we have the right to wild camp on Dartmoor, and the stars are for everyone."
She continued: "The right piece of legislation now is the legislation that covers national parks, and looking at that, and looking at how we can define wild camping in law, so it's clearly defined, and then try and expand it to other national parks in the UK."