A wider focus – wild camping in England and Wales

By Rosie Lewis and Kevin Kennedy

Our colleague Cathryn Tracey has already covered the key points of the Supreme Court’s recent high-profile decision on wild camping on Dartmoor in Darwall and another v Dartmoor National Park Authority in her article: Can I camp on the Dartmoor commons? - Burges Salmon

But what about wild camping generally across England and Wales?  The summer is here, school holidays are coming and both Darwall and The Salt Path have put wild camping in the spotlight.  

For those of us who live in the West Country, The Salt Path’s central idea of walking the whole South West Coast Path (Minehead in Somerset, round Land’s End, to Poole in Dorset, 630 miles) is simultaneously excellent and horrifying.   It’s a spectacular but tough route.

Doing so while camping along the route is a much tougher proposition and both the film and the book give a flavour of the difference (or tension) between people day-walking and those staying much longer. 

The mode of accommodation in The Salt Path is controversial: made homeless, Ray and Moth Winn are forced to wild camp. 

What is the law around this?

The basic approach is that any camping, including wild camping, can only be done with the consent of the landowner.  That will usually be express (“can I camp here?” “yes”) but can be dealt with differently – the National Trust in the Lake District allows wild camping in certain parts in tightly defined and limited ways:   Wild camping in the Lake District | National Trust.  But even when it’s announced to the world on a website, this is an example of landowner consent, and not an inherent right to wild camp – it is being done with permission. 

For England and Wales, the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 grants the public access to common land “for the purposes of open-air recreation”.  But that recreation specifically excludes camping.

Contrast that with Scotland (with far more m² per person) where a right to camp (subject to the Scottish Outdoor Access Code and excluding land such as gardens, school yards, playing fields, industrial or commercial compounds and crop fields) was brought in by the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003. 

Terminology

The terminology used in this area can be confused.  With most true wild camping prohibited, different terms are used to cover different types of activity.  As a term, wild camping captures something of a back-to-nature allure, so it is a term seen used both for true wild camping, but also for sites offering permitted camping with more of a natural appeal.  Trespassory camping (ie camping without permission) is also sometime referred to as fly-camping, a term derived from fly-grazing, giving it a more negative connotation.

We have brought some of the frequently used terms together in the glossary below. 

The future of wild camping after Darwall?

The Supreme Court’s decision in Darwall has attracted a lot of attention, and given fuel to the debate about wild camping and public access to land more broadly. 

The right to wild camp on Dartmoor may have been recognised by the Supreme Court but before you pack up the campervan, remember this is wild camping as practised by Ray and Moth Winn – see the Dartmoor National Park guidance for what that means in practice:  Camping Map | Dartmoor 

This is a properly contentious area.  Wild camping is not easy, and many landowners fear that as the idea gains more traction, there’ll be more unauthorised recreational campers on their land (not the hardened pros) who will generate more rubbish and general behaviour issues, to say nothing of the impact of an influx of dogs.  

To add to the mix, a lot of potential wild camping land is common land (privately owned, but subject to rights of grazing by others).  That can present issues both for potential campers and for the livestock grazing the land. 

Against these challenges, for a small, urbanised island, giving everyone access to nature sounds like an unalloyed good, and the economic opportunities that presents may be transformational for rural areas over the long term.

Glossary

The basic approach is that any camping, including wild camping, can only be done with the consent of the landowner.