Supreme Court set to rule on whether public have right to wild camp on Dartmoor

A couple are set to discover if their Supreme Court challenge over whether the public has the right to wild camp on Dartmoor has been successful on Wednesday.

Alexander and Diana Darwall are challenging a Court of Appeal ruling that said the law allows the public to camp on the Dartmoor Commons in Devon, provided byelaws are followed.

Mr and Mrs Darwall keep cattle on Stall Moor, which forms part of their more than 3,450-acre estate in the southern part of Dartmoor, and told the UK’s highest court that some campers cause problems to livestock and the environment.

The Dartmoor National Park Authority (DNPA) opposed their challenge at a hearing in October last year.

Lord Reed, Lord Sales, Lord Stephens, Lady Rose and Lady Simler will hand down their ruling at 9.45am on Wednesday at the Supreme Court in London.

Dartmoor National Park, designated in 1951, covers a 368-square-mile area that features “commons” – areas of unenclosed, privately owned moorland where locals can put livestock.

The case concerns the interpretation of the Dartmoor Commons Act 1985, which says “the public shall have the right of access to the commons on foot and on horseback for the purpose of open-air recreation”.

In January 2023, High Court judge Sir Julian Flaux ruled that the legislation did not allow people to pitch tents overnight on the Dartmoor Commons without landowners’ permission.

Campaigners argued the decision “went too far” and was a “huge step backward”, and could affect bird-watching, fishing and other activities.

The Court of Appeal overturned the decision in July that year after a challenge by the DNPA, with three senior judges ruling 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”.

Sir Geoffrey Vos said in the judgment that the “critical question” was whether wild camping could be considered a form of “open-air recreation”, finding it was.

In written submissions for the Supreme Court hearing last year, Timothy Morshead KC, for the Darwalls, said the couple are “not motivated by a desire to stop camping on Dartmoor”.

But he said: “Concerns arise from their responsibilities as stewards of the land in their ownership and over which they have commoners’ rights: concerns about the damage that wild camping can cause and, in particular, about the significant risk of fire associated with it.”

He continued that the law only gives the public access on foot and horseback, “which naturally means walking and riding”.

But barristers for the DNPA said the phrase “on foot” means “the access to the commons should be pedestrian and not vehicular”, and labelled the suggestion that erecting a tent could damage land and vegetation as “absurd”.

In written submissions, Richard Honey KC said: “The suggestion that merely erecting a tent for backpack or wild camping damages the land and vegetation is absurd.

“Erecting a tent for backpack or wild camping for a night or two would do no such damage.”

Caroline Voaden, the MP for South Devon, has previously said that access to nature is a “fundamental necessity”.

She said: “The land belongs to all of us. The stars are for everyone. It’s a tragedy that this must be tested, yet again, in the courtroom.”