THE right to wild camp on Dartmoor has returned, after Dartmoor National Park Authority (DNPA) successfully appealed against a landmark ruling brought against the park authority by a landowner last winter.

The appeal follows a controversial legal battle between the Park Authority and Dartmoor landowner Alexander Darwall last winter, in which Darwall successfully convinced the High Court that the legal right to camp on the moor never actually existed, despite it being commonly believed that the right had been enshrined in Dartmoor’s bylaws since 1985.

The sudden ending of this decades-old assumed right triggered public outcry across Devon and beyond, prompting a thousands-strong rally on Stall Moor – Darwall’s land, last January.

Shortly after the ruling, the DNPA negotiated a permissive agreement, in which landowners would be paid with taxpayer money to allow backpackers to continue to camp on their land.

The agreement was widely criticised for using public money to pay for what was already a right, and that the agreement could be withdrawn at the whim of the landowners. The DNPA, therefore, decided to appeal the ruling.

What the appeal is hinging upon, as indeed was the original case, is what is meant in the byelaws by recreation. Darwall’s legal team argue that camping is not recreation and is therefore not included in the ‘right of access to the commons for the purpose of open-air recreation’ in the bylaws.

They also argue that the right to camp interferes with landowners’ property rights. DNPA lawyers assert that recreation ‘undoubtedly includes camping’ and that if it was ruled otherwise, almost every other activity on the moor would also not count as recreation. Lawyers also argue that the original verdict had not considered the ‘wider public interest’.

After a two-week wait, the appeals court panel, consisting of Sir Geoffrey Vos, Lord Justice Underhill and Lord Justice Newey, unanimously ruled that wild camping did count as open-air recreation and should therefore be allowed on the commons.

Vos said: ‘In my judgment, on its true construction, section 10(1) of the Dartmoor Commons Act 1985 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.’

While Mr Darwall’s lawyers argued that being in a tent could not count as ‘open air recreation’, and nor could falling asleep, the court decided otherwise.

Lord Justice Underhill said it was: ‘a perfectly natural use of language to describe that as a recreation, and also as occurring in the open air, notwithstanding that while the camper is actually in the tent the outside air will be to some extent excluded.’

MP Mel Stride commented: ‘Great news that wild camping on Dartmoor can resume. Important though that everyone who does adheres to the “leave no trace” guidance to protect our beautiful national park.’