THIS IS CURRENT A ROUGH AUTO TRANSCRIPT
[MUSIC starts - Bassbeat by Alex Norton: "Funky and upbeat, jangling guitars, a fat bassline and a full horn section create the perfect soundtrack to a late summer block party."]
FRAN: Hello and welcome to On the Outside the podcast that shares diverse views on outdoors news. And yes it is Fran Toski back in your feed. Again, I am actually recording this at the same time as my previous episode, but I thought I would keep it as a bit of a surprise for you just in case I didn't get around to posting it.
This episode is going to be of interest to quite a lot of you, particularly if you listen to our episode on the Kinder Scout trespass and the kinder in color that happened last summer. In that conversation we talked a lot about the right to Rome and wild camping and decolonizing the countryside and in general the idea of the countryside being for as many people as possible. So some of you may well already be aware of the news about Dartmore. So Dartmore is a national park down in the southwest of England and it was the only place where it was completely legal to wild camp. And I say was because there has been a recent court case that was brought up by a landowner in Dartmore who questioned this, right? And the court case ruled in his favor. So now it is no longer legal to wild camp on Dartmore.
I wanted to talk about this on the podcast. I wanted to speak to people who knew a lot more about it than me because it's something which affects outdoor recreation in lots of ways, even if you aren't a wild camper yourself, even if you haven't been to Dartmore yourself. But I knew that I wouldn't have time to do a full conversation and get people together on microphone to talk about it. So I was very pleased to see that there was another podcast that had already done this. I'm going to share with you an episode of a podcast called Summit to talk about. It's produced by a gentleman called Ryan Cook and he shares conversations with people that are into hiking, walking, wild camping and the great outdoors in general, but he occasionally does episodes about what's happening outdoors as well. And he did a conversation yesterday on wild camping on Dartmore and the high court judgment In it he speaks to a gentleman called Mark a k a Mulian Vagrant on Instagram and they explained some things really nicely.
I thought it was a really good conversation which took in a lot of different perspectives and I thought that it would just be really good to share this one with you so that you can know a bit more about what's happening on Dartmore, what that high court judgment means for recreation outdoors in general. And it also gives you some really nice calls to action as well if you want something to do after hearing about this court case and what it means for Dartmore and wild camping across the uk. So enough of me for the moment that I'm going to go straight into it and the next voice you hear will be Ryan from the summit to talk about podcast.
[SUMMIT TO TALK ABOUT MUSIC]
RYAN: Hi, I'm Ryan Dodge Cook and this is Summit to talk about your one stop podcast for all things hiking hills, wild camping and the great outdoors.
This is a special bonus episode in light of the recent court judgment on wild camping in Dartmore National Park back in September, 2021, Dartmore National Park began to review their bylaws and during this process they made some changes mostly just to bring it up to date and a few word changes but nothing massively significant. They shared the proposals and put them out to the public consultation and there was a really good response with a mix of topics in the feedback. However, one of the clauses from the post feedback review was missing the information around wild camping. And this is because a landowner sued the National Park claiming that wild camping was never actually a right. In the 1985 Dartmore Commons Act under the heading of recreation, the National Park argued that it was and the case went to court.
The landowners in question of the Darwells Alexander and his wife Diana, who owned the blatchford estate in Dartmore, this is around 4,000 acres of land, which includes open access land. On Friday the 13th of January, the case went to the high court. The judge ruled in the Dar wars favor and the bottom line is that we are no longer allowed to freely camp on any land in Dartmore. A must seek the landowner's permission before pitching a tent. So I've asked Mark, also known as Mully and Vagrant on Instagram to come and have a chat about the recent court judgment and how it'll impact the communities in Dartmore the young people who learn on this land and how it could impact other areas of the country. We'll go into, we'll go, we'll deep dive into this now because it's very topical. Let's talk about it because there's a big court, high court ruling last week actually. So we are recording this 18th of January, is that today's date? 18th of January. And the high court ruling last week, the high court judgment was the wild camping is no longer allowed freely in Dartmore National Park. So let's talk about that.
MARK: Yeah, I mean I'm not sure what the listeners are aware about Dartmore and what a beautiful president was set down there with one of the few places in Britain that actually permitted we camping for people to go out and sort of legally at that time wild camp, there's a big tradition of youth doing a hike over a few days, a challenge called the 10 Tours where basically on Dartmore they're hiking over 50 miles carrying their backpacks and hiking legally doing that. It is just an incredible credible sort of thing there to have somewhere we are talking vast amounts of open space where dartmore authorities to publish a map saying you can camp here. And we really hoped that Dartmore was going to be a model that was going to be extended across to other national parks like in Scotland where while camping was permissible, areas of late district areas of snowdonia, wherever it was something that was certainly something that we were really hoping for. And this decision absolutely rocked us to the core. Basically one landowner decided that he was going to challenge the rights to we camp on his land because he said that there was no legal precedent set in British law and he was going to take the national park authority to court to get the right to we camp on his land and everybody else's land on Dmar overturned which is just incredible to think that one person has taken away from a whole community such an important gift by doing that. So
RYAN: Yeah, I mean some people, and I'm thinking these are the ones that don't fully understand the whole thing are saying, well, it's only 4,000 acres. We could go camping anywhere else in Dartmore, but that's not true anymore. So what's actually happened is as a result of this court judgment is that the court or the judge ruled that anywhere in Dartmore, if it's owned by somebody, they can choose whether or not you have permission to camp on their land. And so now the ruling is to wild camp anywhere in Dartmore you need an landowner's permission and that has never been the case before. So it's rocked the boat somewhat massively.
MARK: Absolutely. And it's got huge ramifications for our understanding of the law of common land as well because basically that decision was made in the high court about dart war's common land, but that actually is a legal president that is apli applicable to any common land as well. So it doesn't just affect Dartmore, it's got ramifications for future sort of pushes for the right to roam and the use of common land. So it doesn't just affect Dartmore, it's a bit deeper than that.
RYAN: Yeah, definitely is. And that's why people are so upset about it. That's why people are talking about it. That's why it's such a hot topic at the moment because yeah, it isn't, and I've seen people on the wild camp in forums on Facebook for example, saying, doesn't matter, just wild camp anyway. Yeah,
MARK: Absolutely. That's great for you and me, isn't it? That's great for individuals that do that freely. But there's a whole different groups that access art more. There's people that have got mobility issues that used to managed to get 200 meters or whatever from a road, be able to set up a tent and have the right to be there and know weren't going to get moved on at first light. That's right. You've got young people that are doing youth groups that have got the ability to legally be there and to be taken by expedition leaders. I mean, I'm a teacher so I take youths out onto Dartmore and I've got a legal right to do that or had a legal right to do that meant I could risk assess that my insurance because I had the right to be there was legit. I could risk assess that. I knew that those young people weren't going to get moved on and you can't do that now. I mean I've got friends that are doing 10 tour training next weekend and they are now taking their group and they're staying in a pub sort of beer garden with their scout group because
RYAN: That takes away exactly the whole point of doing something like the 10 tours challenge is it's about actually camping in the wilderness and experiencing that for the very first time. And now to have that stripped from them and having to stay in a pub garden, that's not the wilderness they were expecting or really what they want.
MARK: Yeah, no, absolutely not. And obviously Dartmore is made out up of quite a lot of different sort of landowners that own got the Dutchy which is basically now Prince William who owns what was Dartmore Forest, the central part. A lot of that's rented out to the military of defense, but you've also got lots of different landowners that own pockets of dartmore and it's been quite a rich tradition of those landowners working together with the national part to allow this access. But this law has completely thrown that whole sort of status quo into confusion. So the national park is furiously at the moment trying to negotiate with these landowners whether they permit camping on their land. So whether they'll give permission because basically the outcome of this act is without landowner's permission, it is illegal to our camps. But because of GDPR you can't obviously publish landowner's addresses as a national park and stuff like that. So actually how do you go about getting that permission as
RYAN: Fine? And anybody who's been into wild camping elsewhere in England or Wales will know that you can't just go wild camping in anyway. Dartmore was the last place where you could legally wild camp. And so those that have camped elsewhere in England and Wales will know that actually you should be getting landowners permission to do so. But I've tried doing this in the past trying to find out who owns a certain bit of land is n is ni on impossible and it takes away the adventure of going wild camping.
MARK: And so many groups used to come down to Dartmore for the ability to have that sort of resource for young people to give 'em a safe experience where they could actually learn important skills to keep themselves. So a lot of the skills I learned when I did my 10 tours now mean that I feel able to do the tour blanc safely and stuff like that because I had that upbringing because of stuff like that and I was able to experience that safely. I was a member of the scouts we used to go up onto Dartmouth and stuff like that. So yeah, it certainly is a great loss and I certainly as somebody that takes young people, it's hit me really hard about the effect and the impact that it's had on those young people and future sort of generations ability to experience that. And yes, you experience it up in the late district snow down and stuff like that, but as we said earlier, they're then camping a lot on farmer's campsites and stuff like that. It's very rare that they get that rich experience to be able to be out in the top of snow down near as a sort of scout group or stuff like that because it's just one of those things, how do you risk assess it?
RYAN: Yeah, that's right. I mean Dartmore was our last bit of wilderness in England, wasn't it? And now that's gone literally, although, because I mean let's talk a few stats. Here it is, 92% of England is owned by somebody and is not permissible for us to just go roaming on. Whereas 8%, just eight of that was for us to roam and a very small percentage of that 8% was dartmore and now that's gone as well. So yeah, we're left with nothing now all because a land landowner wanted to stop that for whatever his reasons were.
MARK: And when we heard that this decision was going to the courts a group of us sort of thought we really wanted to raise the profile of this court case to have a sort of rally to raise awareness. And we organized a sort of group hike. So myself Becca, muddy boot laces, Tom, weekend hiker, who you might know from sort of Instagram's community decided that we wanted to put together a rally in sort of Princetown at the same time there was an another event happening in London organized by the right to Rome, but we really wanted something to be happening on our doorstep and dartmore where the communities could come out. And once snowy day, we all came down to Princetown and myself, Becca because of the weather forecast stayed in the youth hostel. Tom came down and joined us first thing in the morning and we were sat in a cafe, it was snowing everywhere and there was literally nobody around.
We'd spent the night before counting our mates thinking how many of people are going to show up or we got 10 15 that might look good in the media that we can cobble together a post to get on the B BBC or whatever. Because the BBC said they were coming down and we thought this is going to be really embarrassing. And it was the most surreal thing. We we'd sat in the cafe to have a meeting to meet a couple of people that said they'd come along and help us organize it and it was absolutely freezing. And then suddenly at the start the time when we sort of said the hikes, the rally's going to start, it was like a flash mob, it was suddenly people appearing from absolutely nowhere. They're emerging from pers cafes, local businesses and from literally nobody in that square, no joke, there was 400 people.
RYAN: Yeah, the turnout from seeing the videos that were posted online, the turnout was absolutely immense.
MARK: And it was just one of those most optimistic moments where the whole community was sort of rallying together. There was lots of sharing of all of the great tales about what Dartmore meant and people were saying as a young person, this meant so much to me pulling out old photos, they were talking about their kids and how they wanted to pass on the mantle. And we then followed it up after sort of rally with a hike across Dartmore with probably about 200 people you couldn't see. I was at the start of it sort of leading the sort of way high vis jacket on and I look back over my shoulder and you couldn't see the end of this sort of trail of people as I was walking around sort of King's tour. And it was just the most beautiful, incredible sort of feeling to know that this whole community of hikers of outdoor enthusiasts has pulled together, rallied together to highlight the high court, the importance of dartmore for everybody and not just this one individual that was contesting this decision.
And we were so optimistic that we thought there's such a president said that camp has happened uncontested by any landowner for 30 years. There's not been any legal challenges and this is going to be fine guys. We've got this. And we never imagined the decision would be the one that it was. We obviously, we were really wary about this landowner. He hired an incredible lawyer, he's a hedge fund manager, multimillionaire. He'd hired the Times lawyer of the year to defend himself, the national park who were basically, I dunno what you know about the national parks, but over the next four years, the 1.7 million pound underfunded visitor centers in Dartmore, the Princetown visitor centers at risk of closing because of the lack of investment. And then suddenly all of this public money had to go into hiring a lawyer with minimum sort of costs because they just haven't got that money to defend this multimillion pound hedge fund sort of owner. And all intents and purposes British law, he spent well over a hundred pound on this lawyer x lot more money than that. And they have to pick up Dartmore Park authority, not only their legal costs, but between 60 to 80% of his costs as well. Oh That's just awful.
And then they've got the decision about can we actually appeal all this? Have we got enough evidence, have we got enough clout to be able to take this to court or do we face further financial sort of room, which could have additional effects on conservation on actually landowners own dart war that the Dartmore Rangers sort of help or support the camping, the management of the land and stuff. So it was quite a weird feeling to fight suddenly from that sort of to hear the ruling and literally I was in absolute shock for a day I was working and this decision came out and the echoes of the dubois are discontent suddenly has come across the whole hiking community about Oh, massively. Yeah. Yeah. He's just absolutely blown up and I can't believe the sort of outpouring of both grief and anger and cries of rallying a sort of people together.
And I really, I'm hoping that this is going to be the catalyst for greater sort of land changes and it's going to have such a positive effect, this outpouring of we need our open space, we need the right to wild cup that's going to only benefit every sort of national park, every sort of wilderness area in the UK because people now want to be heard. They want to. So what is a negative Dartmore Darl banning world Camping is actually doing a lot to promote the need to have open access to reform, the rights to roam, to reform the National Park acts to maybe permit while camping and the Scottish sort of code across a wider area. So that's something that we're certainly pushing in the media. There is motions being housed in the houses parliament by mps to ask for reform to support that very sort of action. So that's one route that could come out of this.
RYAN: Yeah, I mean although it's been an absolutely devastating outcome from the court ruling, like you've just said there, the support that has come out over the past week in the past few days has been immense. And it's just showing that community spirit. And when you think back to things like the Kinder Scout, mass trespass, that made a difference because a community came together and we've got to look at it in those lights in that we could do something positive from this. We can turn this around whether it changes the outcome or not, we don't know. But even if it doesn't change this particular outcome, it could change things for the future. Exactly as you've just said there, could we be potentially looking at a reform? Could we be looking at how national parks allow us to access and use the land for wild camping? It could change all of these things and all of these voices that we've heard over the past few days over the internet and yourself and Becca, you've been sharing loads and loads of stuff on social media.
There's right to Rome there's all these people that have come out and gone on the radio onto tv. There's people I've never heard of, they're speaking out and they, they're getting the message out there and there's an early day emotions now that's been set, hasn't there in parliament for trying to rally up a bit of support amongst mps. So in terms of what we can do now, because we've clearly got that hunger for it as a community in terms of what we can do now, it's about coming together and pushing forward and there's certain things that we can be doing now. And you've just mentioned there, I think there's two petitions that are out there at a minute. So let's just talk about them, shall we?
MARK: Absolutely. So muddy boot laces, if you go onto her Instagram account, she has just posted a petition which is linked there. I'd urge everybody to go on there to sign that I've got on my page the list of MPS and the motion that's in the House of Parliament at the moment. I would urge everybody to go onto that to see the motion and to copy that to the local MP and request that they support that motion because the more people that are asking for that to be on the agenda at parliament, the more we can push that forward. So they're two extremely positive things we can do. We can sign petitions that request that this is taken seriously in the houses of parliament. We can ask our mps to actually raise this matter in parliament and to debate it and to actually make changes to the law to support these things and to move the rights of while camping forward, not just for Dartmore but of a sort of areas as well.
So it could have a knock on positive effect there. One angle that I'm really pushing and I know Tom and Beckers as well, is that campus, while campus have never been more in the public eye at the moment, it really is a case of camping. While camping is very much now in the public media and it's got media attention and I'm looking at people like Mr. Dao, I'm looking at people who are looking for it to trip up for wild camping because of their various interests. And I'm saying that we've got to as a community really demonstrate how responsible the wild camping community is. So I'm pushing a lot of the leave no trace philosophy. I have always carry a trash can on the back of my R sac. I always lit a pick and leave somewhere better. But I'm really hammering that image into social media, into the public's eye at the moment almost down the throats that we are hiking community so responsible, we don't want to kick ourselves in the backside by acting irresponsibly and doing mass camps and mass demonstrations.
We don't want to be showing that we are lighting fires in the middle of Dartmore and all of the stuff that is not in the code of ethics for the dark more rangers. We are really box ticking. And I think if we can get that message across in the media about the fact that camping as a rec open air recreational activity is such low impact that it actually deserves to be permitted in the late district in Snowdonia and snow down here and once again in dark war, then we are really going to do a lot to help the cause and to actually move things forward. So that positive sort of spin on the low impact is definitely something that we can all PA to do as well. Definitely. But
RYAN: As you've just said there, and I'll reiterate that point now it's easy to act upon anger but when we do that we tend to act out of control. And so we need to demonstrate a bit of restraint here and actually do what we've always done because what the we will find is whilst we're under the spotlight is all of a sudden the media will paint wild campus to be fly tipping campus. Fly campers are the ones that are leaving trash. And we do know that this happens but this is the very, very, very small minority and as a whole, the world camping community leave no trace and follow all those leave no trace principles and you don't know that somebody's been there. And that's the whole point. So we need to stick with that, promote that and prove to the media that those are the wild campers that we are trying to support and those are the wild campers that we are and that we're fighting for something that we actually believe in, not for.
We're not fighting for a bit of allowance so that we can leave all our crap on it. That's not what we're doing cause we are not those people. And so it is very, very important this weekend that if we'll get onto this in a minute, there's a rally this weekend. But if anybody's going thinking of going to Dartmore or even thinking about world camping, then I would probably try not to at the minute whilst the spotlight's on us particularly because the media are at there everywhere and the last thing we need is the media to rock up to someone's camp in the middle of dartmore whilst they've got a fire going because that is just going to make us all look stupid. So in the words of Becca on social media, don't be a dick if you're going into
MARK: Dark. Yeah, leave your glue sticks at home. Yeah, yeah. Leave
RYAN: Your glue sticks at home. Don't go
MARK: Glue with the dick to a fence or whatever. Yeah,
RYAN: It did make me laugh earlier when she
MARK: Said that. Yeah, no, absolutely. But no, so true. So true. Yeah. But I think it's safe to say if we're responsibly sort of camping away from the Dar war land in areas away from the roads and stuff like that, harford more, they've gone on record to say that they will allow wild camping. So there are certainly definitely areas of dartmore that we can still responsibly wild camp if we do want to do it, we can look at the map, we can still go to the areas where it was deemed. And I know speaking to the dartmore rangers that as long as we are following the ranger codes that we are leaving no trace and stuff like that, that we are showing responsibility and sending the right message that that will be okay. So
RYAN: I can't remember which site it is, whether it's the Dartmore National Park Association or whether it was the right to Rome, but there is a dartmore camping map. There is likes the areas obviously at the minute it's been taken down I believe whilst they're trying to amend it and make the changes that are required. But there is a map that tells you where you can and cannot camp in DMO and say there are many, many landowners that are quite happy to allow that to continue. And so let's just let the dust sell, see what happens. And hopefully we'll start seeing those supportive landowners come out of the woodwork and say, yeah, I'm quite happy to allow this to continue providing you leave no trace and do all the things that we were doing before. So let's just see how that pant out. But let's talk about this Saturday then. So Saturday the 21st, is it
MARK: 21st? Yes. So right in the heart of where this started, the right to Rome group have organized buses from Ivy Bridge leaving at I think believe one o'clock to go into Conwood, one of the most least accessible places on Dartmore. The landowner shut his car park three or four years. Well 2011 it's a two mile walk onto the mor. It's a two mile walk sort of off the mor. So it's not the most accessible place. And they are going to be leading a awakening of crok who is a dartmore sort of folk tale about. I think the story is that he, he's almost one of those almost fairy foa, the sort of the more that and he's going to rise in the ashes and wipe out the negativity of Darwin's nest. So it's face symbolic and
RYAN: Yeah, I read something about it. It comes back to protect people from when the land's under threat from greed, which couldn't
MARK: Be more. Yeah, no, and it's a beautiful area of dartmore. There's got the longest stone row in Europe, possibly the world. There's a stone circle at the end of that. And there's a beautiful photo tale about that stone circle which was there were load of maidens sort of having a party playing kiss and having a merry old time on the Sabbath on the Saturday. And the Lord was angered by this and struck them down and turned them into stone. And as the girls were fleeing, they formed the stone row and there's the stone circle, which is the nine sort of maidens that sort of were in a loop playing the kiss and sort of tail sort of thing. So there's a long tradition of knee up and parting on Dar Wars land and stuff. So I think it's quite apt that they've decided to have it there of
RYAN: Yeah, I mean this is the tradition, this is all these little tales here. These folk tales are the tradition that we're trying to protect. It's all part of what we're trying to protect here.
MARK: Absolutely. And it is really is cause Stark war is a really rich landscape of archeology. It's a very timeless sort of landscape that really just feels like it's above anybody's individual rights know it is an landscape that has been touched untouched. We're talking 200 million years of geology form in this granite landscape that's 1,500 years of whatever of occupation by people and stuff like that in various guys from stone Bron's age. And it is a landscape that has seen many changes and it will certainly be a landscape that will be there long after Mr. Darl, but it's a landscape that shouldn't be owned by one individual. It should be accessible to all. And I think the crux of it for us really is that one person should not be owning and limiting to this extent getting on for 5,000 acres.
RYAN: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean let's see what we can do and let's see if we can turn this around and maybe Mr. Daral will be able to change his mind at some point when he realizes the benefits of allowing people onto his land. It's not all bad, we're not all bad people. The benefits of it, we've already touched on that. The youth is where it's going to affect most these young people who are trying to get into the outdoors. This was their last opportunity, this is their last place to be able to go and do that legally. And now we've taken that from 'em.
MARK: Absolutely. And if you ever go onto that more, as I'm sure I'll encourage you, a lot of people to come and support the rally, you'll find it as the most inhospitable place ever. You've got Tufts of grass and Pete Bogs and uneven ground and the spots where you can literally, wild can tent are so limited. It's a two mile walk on and off. It is just an area where you're not going to get mass tourists turning up sort of fly tipping, getting the barbecues out or causing big problems. Me and Becca Muddy boot laces went there the week before the protest to have our last wild camp there. We didn't know it was going to be the last one. Legal wild camp. And it's such a remote area of Dartmore. Dartmore is in itself quite remote, but this is really is the backup beyond in Dartmore. And it's an area that actually is ever going to be able to be used for anything from live livestock grazing across the extent of it or buildings. Cause it's a national park or it really is a landscape that actually there's no reason why people can't access which sensibly
RYAN: And let's hope that will continue. We'll see what the outcome is. I'm hoping that this all gets appealed and we win it out. But in the meantime, I suppose we can sort of let the dust settle, raise the awareness, carry on building the momentum of the support that has already started over the past few days. Let's get this taken to court. Let's get the petition sorry, take into parliament, let's get it discussed parliament. And hopefully it'll make changes elsewhere in England and Wales around our rights to Rome. Because as it stands, it's looking pretty dismal.
MARK: It is. I mean I think the figure is 92% of the UK is under sort of private ownership unaccessible to the public, 92% of our country. And that is just a crazy figure, isn't it? So let's move this forward, let's open up those rights of access. Let's actually use this as a catalyst to make these changes and be heard. So yes to Gartner, but also to the rest of the UK as well.
RYAN: Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean the dream is that we sort of mirror what they do in Scotland because they've got it exactly how we want it. And you alluded to that earlier on when you talked about your HE and Way trail.
MARK: Yeah, yeah. It's a beautiful area of the UK, isn't it? But my word is it long way from Cornwall, so
RYAN: Oh yeah, <laugh> another world.
MARK: It's not the most accessible for the weekend. So it's definitely prefer somewhere closer and legal on my doorsteps I think.
RYAN: Certainly. So let's wrap this up and we'll just summarize then. So in the meantime, before Saturday, if you are attending on Saturday at the rally follow mark on social media, Mulian Vagrant, and also follow Becca Muddy boot laces follow right to Rome. You'll get all the information, the weekend hiker, they're all sharing
MARK: Information and weekend today we're all sharing that information. And I would say that if you stick to those sort of people that there are a lot of splinter sort of petitions. There are groups asking to do mass wild camps in March and stuff like that. And I think as a community, we've got to be a bit careful, as we've said about not acting in anger and acting responsibly. So pick the information that you take, look at the right to roam, look at Becca, look at Tom, look at my sales page and follow the lead of people that really got the interests of Dartmouth and the community at heart and moving things forward. Yeah,
RYAN: Absolutely. Because that's what it's all about the young day. It's about dartmore the place. It's not about our individual wants and needs for world camping. It's about dartmore and how much that can affect the wider community. And you got to remember, there's people that live there. There's people that live in people that have dartmore on their doorstep. Whilst there's a lot of us, including myself, who live up north massively in support of what's going on down there because of the wider ramifications, we've got to remember that actually if we're just going to rock up and go wild camping and light fires, how that might look for the people that live there and how that'll affect it.
MARK: And that image of camping for all of us as well, isn't it? It's much in the public sort of eye. So yeah, let's just the letters and I think we will have a positive outcome from this. Absolutely.
RYAN: So yeah, those of you are going on Saturday. Good luck to you all. I hope you have a great day. I can't make it but I will be fully supporting you from Lancashire. And in the meantime you can sign the petitions. I've shared them today on Instagram. You've shared them as well, mark. I know Becca shared them, they're all over the place. Sign the petitions. And also this takes a little bit of time, but write to your MP as well and get them to try and support this early day motion that's going through to try and bring forward some new laws to change the way in which we have some access to this land. And if needs be, I've written my letter today and I've shared it on social media already. I'm happy to just share. I, I've sort of redacted it a little bit and made a bit of a blank template that if anybody wants it to send off to their mp, by all means message me on Instagram, I'll ping you a copy across. All you'll need to do is put your details on it and you can use that to write your mp.
MARK: Absolutely. And if anybody's got any further questions, just drop me a personal message on Instagram and I will do my best to get back to you with your queries on, take it from there, there to talk and to support the situation. So drop in. Fantastic. Yeah,
RYAN: Fantastic. Right, let's finish it off there. Thank you so much for your time this evening, mark.
MARK: It's been a pleasure.
RYAN: It's been great. It really has. And good luck this weekend. Good luck with the rest of your year and thank you so much.
MARK: No, no, thank you and have a good evening and goodbye all and thanks for listening.
[IDENT]
FRAN: So there you have it. I hope that that conversation was useful and interesting to you. Do go ahead and follow the links to those petitions, right to your mp. And I also want to give you another call to action today because as always, I would really like to hear your thoughts and opinions on this episode, but I want to collect as many voice notes as possible on this story and what you think about the high court judgment on wild camping in Dartmore. So I want you to send me a voice note on WhatsApp to the phone number zero seven eight eight three nine oh five three three six. Please include in it if you are happy to your name, whereabouts you are based as well, and your thoughts about this judgment. I'm going to start off with my wants. So my name is Francesca. I am based on the south coast of England. And the Dar wells have just proven themselves as a footnote in something that I think is going to be massive.
They have proved themselves selfish, and I do think that they've done this to make themselves feel big and important, but they're not. They're a footnote in history. So that's all for today, folks. Thank you very much to Ryan for letting me use his episode today. On the outside artwork is by Sophie Nolan.
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Our music is Bass Beats by Alex Norton. On the Outside is produced and hosted by myself. This podcast is part of the Tremula Network Adventure and Outdoor Podcast off the beaten track. If you'd like to find out more about that, head to trem.network. Thank you to everyone who supports us on Patreon. You can do so yourself patreon.com/ontheoutsidepodcast. And of course, thank you all very much for listening.
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