Supreme court rules that wild camping on Dartmoor is legal

Wild camping will be allowed on Dartmoor after the supreme court ruled that a multimillionaire landowner was wrong to ban it on his land.

- Helena Horton

Dartmoor was - until the legal action - the only place in England where wild camping without the permission of the landowner was enshrined in law. In Scotland, people have enjoyed this right since 2003.

Alexander Darwall, a multimillionaire hedge fund manager, has been pursuing the matter through the courts against the Dartmoor National Park Authority (DNPA) for two years.

Darwall, Dartmoor's sixth largest landowner, bought the 1,620-hectare (4,000-acre) Blachford estate on southern Dartmoor in 2013. He offers pheasant shoots, deerstalking and holiday rentals on his land.

He has argued that under the law he has been unable to remove wild campers from his land and said this had affected his conservation efforts and potentially put his cattle at risk.

The DNPA wants to keep the right for wild camping on Dartmoor and said it is "absurd" to suggest wild camping causes environmental issues.