petition for wild camping south of the border

Sat, Jan 26, 2008

Up here we’re spoiled and as a mountain leader I can plan multi-day routes in the hills knowing that at the end of the day, me and my party can settle down in a remote and isolated location, high up in the mountains, away from roads and habitation and not be bothered by the “law”. Why? This is wild camping and it’s within the law in Scotland. You can wild camp in Scotland for up to 3 nights in the one place but the usual moral code of conduct applies. Leave no trace. Down south though, it’s a different matter and over at Whitespider’s blog, there’s a petition to lobby the English government to legalise wild camping in England and Wales.

Citing Scotland as a model example of legislation isn’t quite applicable to south of the border as the population density is far higher than it is up here. I had a few chinwags with HF leaders last year and I got the impression that rather than people demanding access to all and every bit of undeveloped land, the priority is to keep the footpath network open. There’s isn’t that much “wild land” down there, comparatively speaking and so the footpath network is far more important than it is up here. We do have rights of way but in general, once you’re away from the central belt you can walk just about wherever you like. Within reason and with due concern for others. So we don’t really need a footpath network like you get down south. The landscape down there is so “crowded” that leaders mostly use 1:25,000 maps as they need to negotiate the myriad of paths, bridleways, walls and non CROW land.

The petition is well worth supporting though, especially if you are a guide of some sort. MLs promote the mountain experience and I remember reading a quote from someone. It might have been John Muir, or it might have been Doug Scott, or someone else! It went something like:

“you don’t really know a mountain until you’ve slept out on it”

You can’t do that with the threat of the law turning up and moving you on. Don’t forget it’s not just the police. It’s the landowner who can shift you, with the force of the law behind him. Over on whitespider’s blog the debate has started as to whether wild camping should be legalised down south. The usual arguments about “pikies” taking over the wild places with caravans and raves. Well, we heard all that too when the land access laws were being developed up here. The full stratum of society was exercised, from the House of Lords, where peers exclaimed that walkers would invade their ancestral policies, to people like Chris Townsend and the MCofS working with landowners on the ground. The vapour and academic posturings from parliament down to the solid negotiating on the ground. The result was some of the best land access legislation on the planet. I read the Hawai’i hiking blog and the access rights there are abominable. So we must remember how fortunate we are to have this legislation.

So I think we should support the petition. There’s a lot of access legislation experience up here which I’m sure could be applied to help those furth of the border to camp out without the threat of Sir Tweed of Tweed Hall setting the dogs on them.

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