Saturday, January 14, 2023

Richard Foord deeply concerned at wild camping ruling

Richard Foord, the Liberal Democrat MP for Tiverton and Honiton, has expressed deep concern at a judicial ruling that has removed the right to wild camping on Dartmoor.

In a thread on Twitter he said:

As a child, I wild camped on Dartmoor when training for the Ten Tors expedition and for the Duke of Edinburgh Award. Without these experiences I would not have joined the Army or trained to be a Mountain Leader.

Like many people across the South West, I regularly enjoy getting out into nature with my children and spending evenings camped under the stars. Restricting people’s right to do this is damaging and will really limit the opportunities our kids have to explore the countryside.

We must protect people’s right to respectfully enjoy our green spaces and national parks. They must remain open and accessible, not closed off. I will seek to raise this issue in Parliament next week and push for action to safeguard this historic right.

I'm all in favour of private property, but the exact rights that owning property brings with it are something for public debate and political decision. I see nothing to be said for a legal position that allows large landowners to act like Smaug on his hoard.

The people campaigning for change include the campaign group Right to Roam.

One of the books I read at my mother's bedside in her final months was The Book of Trespass by Nick Hayes. 

As the Guardian review by William Atkins says:

Summarising English property law, from the first Act of Enclosure in 1235 to the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act of 2005, Hayes persuasively implicates the country’s large private estates - and the very notion of such large-scale exclusive land ownership - in the nation’s foundational evils. 

"Race, class, gender, health, income are all divisions imposed upon society by the power that operates on it," he writes. "If this power is sourced in property, then the fences that divide England are not just symbols of the partition of people, but the very cause of it." 

To peer through these palings is to gaze into the country’s dark heart: on the other side, ordinarily hidden from public view, is a scene of vampiric exploitation sustained by a quasi-religious belief in the sanctity of private space.

I recommend this book, though I can see Richard Foord's arguments playing better in Conservative marginals.

2 comments:

Frank Little said...

As Caroline Lucas pointed out on Radio 4 News, the right to roam exists in Scotland and the troubles caused by inconsiderate campers, cited by the Dartmoor land-owner, are vanishingly small. Of course, it could be that all Scots are responsible citizens and the people of England and Wales cannot be trusted.

Anonymous said...

The Scottish comparison may not be quote as useful as many people think. For a variety of reasons, England has a highly developed network of footpaths, byways, green roads, bridleways etc which give unparalleled public access deep into the countryside, regardless of its ownership. Scotland, on the other hand, has a legal right to roam, but access for the general public can be difficult. There are few paths, and not many signposts: anyone wanting to access the Scottish countryside has to just set off into the wild blue yonder. Very romantic, to be sure, and definitely more "wild" than the English experience, but is it really that accessible? I'm not so sure.

That's not to indicate any criticism of Richard Foord MP, or support for the judicial finding - just an observation. If you wan to know more about the Slow Ways project, which aims to turn the English network of footpaths etc into a walker-devised series of long distance routes, then here's the link...

https://slowways.zendesk.com/hc/en-gb