wild camping to be made illegal in the UK

[L CC]

They work it. You play in it.
You might not think they have any right to own it, but in law they do, and until the revolution, that remains the case.

ETA the very fact you assume all land owners to be wealthy just demonstrates your lack of knowledge. Lots (& lots) of farmers aren't landowners, they're tenants, and they still don't necessarily want you wild camping on their land.

[bludger]

They don't 'work it', they get a massive subsidy from the rest of our payslips and they spend their time drenching it in toxic chemicals, and then trying to get the government to kick them even more. I don't own them a thing. The idea that our country is some kind of inviolate cash cow you can't sleep in without paying the right people is just ludicrous. You don't own the landed spongers a penny. In fact, they owe you. 'Working' something, extracting cash from assets for your own pocket, isn't a virtue to be celebrated. It's an environmental catastrophe. The sooner they give up the game and it's given over to the likes of the national trust the better.

[Cudzoziemiec]

No I'm not. They don't 'own' it any more than I do. These are the rights our ancestors fought hard for.

I remember a poem (not a well known one) I read as a kid that went something like:
You're on my land! Get off!
Who says it's your land?
I got it from my father.
Where did he get it from?
He got it from his father.
And where did he get it from?
He fought for it.
Well then, I'll fight you for it!

This is not a sensible solution.

[L CC]

National Trust tenant farmers don't much want you wild camping on their land, either.

[Kim]

TBH, I think the rights and wrongs of land ownership or wild camping as YACFers might do it^[1] is a red herring.  This is a nasty piece of legislation which the government are spinning as anti-Traveller (always popular with the Middle England electorate) but will doubtless be used as another stick to beat the homeless etc with, and we should oppose it on those grounds.


_{[1] I see little harm in a bit of bivvying under a bridge on a 600, but appreciate that nobody wants people shitting in their hedgerows or clogging the lanes with motorhomes.  In this context, I'm more concerned about potentially losing access to footpaths and bridleways than a sort of camping I almost never do.}

[bludger]

National Trust tenant farmers don't much want you wild camping on their land, either.

not their land. And having actually been a national trust ranger for several years I can assure you that it's actually us lot who do the most wild camping and we look the other way on people doing it, too.

The national trust motto is "for ever, for everyone". Not 'fuck off landless peasant scum get off my land before I set the rozzers on you.'

[zigzag]

tazer in the arse for a wake-up call - yes please!

[bludger]

Given you seem to think it acceptable that the richest people in the country are claiming fat subsidies at everyone else's expense, while presuming to criminalise the 99.9% for taking a sleep in a hedge, maybe it's you who needs the electrodes up the old chocolate starfish.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I know people who have camped on National Trust land but that was back in the 1970s and they were kids. All the NT signs point out that it's illegal. Enforcement presumably varies from place to place; this was a common, the grounds of a stately home would surely be another matter and farmland, well, it's going to depend on the farmer. 

[bludger]

The signs (no longer there in my experience) might say one thing but the actual rangers and estate managers who forego other careers are fine with it. Indeed there is actual NT guidance on how to do it. https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/features/wild-camping-in-the-lake-district

[Karla]

How many times has Bludger now set himself up as the "us" against the "spongers", "richest" "toxic" "don't work" ... whatever other hate terms he wants to use?

[bludger]

Maybe if it was you being threatened with criminalisation by landowners you'd take a bit more notice.

[Karla]

Oh, I'm taking notice.  I'm just also aware I'm not the Messiah or Wat Tyler, and the other guy isn't the devil incarnate.

[bludger]

'Appealing for moderation' in the face of your own rights being put on a chopping block has to be the lamest excuse for a virtue that there is in the UK.

[Ripio]

Stuff like the NC500 is threatening the right to roam in Scotland.

Wild camping is fine if hardly anyone does it, but terrible if it is interpreted as ghastly campervans being used to avoid paying money to an area they are visiting, and blocking up passing places, spilling waste out and so on.

Things like this stop working when the numbers of people start causing damage. That’s pretty much what is beginning to happen now...

Technically there is no "right to roam" in Scotland, there is a right to responsible land access and the wild camping aspect of it specifically excludes motorised camping or campervanning, there is no right under the access legislation to just pull your campervan (or your car and tent) off the road onto a bit of land and spend the night.
The problem is that the existing legislation is not enforced.

[Jaded]

Agreed entirely with what you say.  Also to add the law is not understood by those that pull off the road - many think they have a right to do it.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Always thought right to roam in Scotland was specifically on foot, bike or horse, no motor vehicles. And I'm not entirely sure about the horse. Or the bike. And isn't there a regulation about camping under access rights that it has to be a minimum distance from a road and no fires?

[Jaded]

I think quite a lot of that is right.

Try telling the average campervan NC500er that.

[bludger]

There is a right to roam in Scotland, in reality. Most RTRers are responsible and do their activities without causing problems.

The actual environmental elephant in the room in Scotland is the ruinous 'land management' by the likes of land tycoons Paul Dacre etc who have turned Scottish highland into the ecological equivalent of the surface of the moon. Illegally killing raptors ( https://www.nature.scot/snh-commissioned-report-982-analyses-fates-satellite-tracked-golden-eagles-scotland ), packing the moorland with as many grouse to shoot as they can. But of course it's not in the press because the same people who own the papers own the land. And we haven't even begun to break bread about the great dorito coloured rapist chieftan and his SSSI-devestating golf resort.

But, of course, you know, gotta prioritise those 'gypsies'. 

[Jaded]

The north highlands have been changed massively, possibly forever, by the NC500. Paul Dacre slimed about long before that.

[sojournermike]

The north highlands have been changed massively, possibly forever, by the NC500. Paul Dacre slimed about long before that.

I was afraid of this when I first heard of the NC500 - https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2019/may/25/dark-side-scotland-north-coast-500-route-speeding-congestion-protest

We've spent a lot of time in the Hebrides and, even as a visitor, you get the sense that the white vans stop regardless of anyone else and tend to not spend money locally.

On the original topic, the legislation is aimed at the travelling communities. There's been emnity between the nomad and the settled since the first settler.

However, apart from being discriminatory, it's the thin end of the wedge and can only lead to more bad things. I imagine Patel loves it. As I've got older, I find myself increasingly aligned with Bludger on land ownership and rights. The law should address bad behaviour, so don't criminalise trespass, just criminal damage. That allows protection of crops and so on. You can include most of the other complaints people have about travellers too, but deal with the problem.

[fuaran]

Monbiot's article here. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/15/tresspass-trap-law-land-travelling-people-rights

The Tory manifesto promised to "make intentional trespass a criminal offence".
Some landowners will be pushing for further restrictions on access. Especially targetting protestors, eg Extinction Rebellion and hunt sabs.

[bludger]

However, apart from being discriminatory, it's the thin end of the wedge and can only lead to more bad things. I imagine Patel loves it.

oh for sure, Gallows Priti is probably having the time of her life in the home office. I expect she'll be trying to make a move to reintroduce the hemp fandango at the next general.

[bikepacker]

Personally, for the sensible cycling or backpacking wild camper I cannot see that this law will make one iota of difference. I state this as someone who has often wild camped and may continue to do so if my circumstances change.

I live in a rural community on a common, within a 2 miles radius I have 8 farms, 4 horse riding establishment, a stately home, 2 large country mansions, 2 historically important sites and 5 areas of common land (each as an ancient covenant which would forbid any form of camping). Never in the 20 years I have lived here have I found any objection to a passing cyclist or walker wild camping within this area.
This morning I stopped to speak to Mathew who farms less than a mile from me, his land encompasses a lake made by Capability Brown to feed the water features at Crome Court. Also Sustrans route 45, a well-used E2E route, passes within 50 yards of the lake but hidden by trees. We talked about wild campers as he said about two a year camp by the lake. He said he had no objection except he wished they would let him know they were there. Apparently, the dogs know they are there and don’t settle until he has been to look. Also if he was not aware of them, early morning he could release stock to drink at the lake and being inquisitive they could cause damage or injury to anyone camping there.

As for the suggestion that they could be confronted by a landowner with a loaded shotgun is just plain silly. No registered owner of a shotgun would dare risk pointing a loaded weapon at another human being in a threatening manner.

On the other side of the topic, in a village near to me travellers broke into a children’s sports field and playground. In five days they caused £57,000 worth of damage including: Completely wrecking the entrance gate which also served as a disabled entrance. Ruining the grass playing area by racing quad bikes around the field. Leaving vast amount of rubbish and scrap metal behind. And worst of all using the artificial turfed tennis court as a toilet. This meant the whole area was out of bounds for the children and disabled of the area for almost a year. If this new law prevents this behaviour then I for one am in favour, even at the risk of curtailing some wild camping, which I doubt will happen.

[Wowbagger]

Shall we just say that vandals did that and not denigrate the entire traveller community by association?