HOT TOPIC On January 21st 2023, more than 3500 people marched onto a patch of land in Dartmoor, not far north of Ivybridge, in one of the largest protests for land access in English history. Just over a week prior, any one of them could have legally put up a tent and spent the night, sleeping bag zipped up to the nose, secure in the knowledge that they couldn’t be moved on. Indeed, Dartmoor was the only place in England and wales where this was a legal right.
But on January 13th, multimillionaire landowner Alexander Darwall, owner of Blachford Estates, won a court case arguing that the right to wild camp on the moors had never existed. ‘Outdoor recreation’, it was argued, includes walking, horse-riding or having a picnic, but…