For those of you aware of the launch of https://www.ukwildcamp.org/ and the subsequent social media storm, they appear to have had a change of heart and have suspended the service.
“We’re wild campers too and thought the idea of campaigning to remove the current restrictions would be welcome. We also thought that running a booking scheme for entry-level wild campers, one that would provide them with the security and legitimacy that currently causes them concerns about camping wild, would be understood and welcome by the wider group. We now see this is not the case!"
Why can't people just use their initiative and, y'know, go erect a tent and sleep in it? Why does every last thing in this day and age need to be spoon-fed to people and backed up by some glossy veneer of corporate legitimacy?
Because there is money to be made. From https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/wild-camping-england-wales/
> DEFRA is funding UK Wild Camp to see whether landowners are willing to let out tracts of land and whether there is an appetite to book and pay for wild camping spots in National Parks.
> Spearheading the campaign are the founders of business consultancy Waterloo Bridge, Will Harris and John Nichols
> Harris’ recently published novella Rewilding the Humans theorises that we’re all wild beings and need more opportunities to simply move from one point to another
Their first tweet had the hashtag #outsideisfree. Turns out, they wanted it to cost £20.......
Good riddance to a terrible idea.
Previous thread (hadn't noticed it, sorry) here:
https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/hilltalk/charging_for_wild_camping-705400
But who in their right mind would actually pay? The depressing thing is that I suspect there'd actually be a reasonable market, and I think they all need their heads seeing to.
> But who in their right mind would actually pay? The depressing thing is that I suspect there'd actually be a reasonable market, and I think they all need their heads seeing to.
Because people who seek a different experience to your own can't possibly be right in the head?
Classy!
> Why can't people just use their initiative and, y'know, go erect a tent and sleep in it? Why does every last thing in this day and age need to be spoon-fed to people and backed up by some glossy veneer of corporate legitimacy?
There are probably various reasons - firstly that it's illegal, and it takes a while for people to discover that no-one cares very much so long as you're sensible, and secondly because, as a result of it being illegal, it's relatively hard for anyone to give authoritative-looking guidance on how to do it sensibly - anyone particularly official just has to say that you shouldn't do it because it's illegal.
But the solution to that is either to campaign to change the law and provide better information, or just to accept that it's a niche activity for people who've figured out that where and how they can do it without hassle and leave it at that. This sort of scheme helps no-one, and risks making matters a lot worse.
> Because people who seek the same experience to your own but want to pay a ludicrous sum of money for it can't possibly be right in the head?
Well, yes. Exactly.
Ahhhhhh. The holding page makes it all clear (it probably was to others but Ive only just got it).
This is absolutely nothing official in any way shape or form. It's wannabes trying to spot a gap - and get landoowners to offer camping space in return for money. The park gets 25% (to endorse I guess) and "the platform" gets 25%.
It's a business.
Actually, it's a now-failed business. The web page is registered to the wildnerness that is Surrey.
> Well, yes. Exactly.
Do you ever wonder whether elitest attitudes discourage participation in outdoor activities?
> Ahhhhhh. The holding page makes it all clear (it probably was to others but Ive only just got it).
> This is absolutely nothing official in any way shape or form. It's wannabes trying to spot a gap - and get landoowners to offer camping space in return for money. The park gets 25% (to endorse I guess) and "the platform" gets 25%.
> It's a business.
> Actually, it's a now-failed business. The web page is registered to the wildnerness that is Surrey.
> There are probably various reasons - firstly that it's illegal, and it takes a while for people to discover that no-one cares very much so long as you're sensible, and secondly because, as a result of it being illegal, it's relatively hard for anyone to give authoritative-looking guidance on how to do it sensibly - anyone particularly official just has to say that you shouldn't do it because it's illegal.
Your right, it's so illegal that someone like the Lake District National Park would never have a handy webpage on how to wild camp......
https://www.lakedistrict.gov.uk/visiting/where-to-stay/wild-camping
Oh......
> Doesn't it seem a shame that a few elitist dickheads getting antsy about the definition of wild camping have closed something down that could have encouraged people to get out and enjoy the outdoors?
I don't give two hoots about the definition of wildcamping and find the people getting all huffy about the terminology a bit daft, but I think that website was an utterly crap way to encourage people to get out and enjoy the outdoors and had the potential to be very counterproductive in the long run.
How do you think that charging a small fee to camp on enclosed land was going to be counterproductive?
As for "utterly crap", like all business ventures the customers or lack thereof would have proved it right or wrong.
Admittedly it was phrased a bit strongly, but the point I was making is that you'll have an identical experience either way - but one person will be £20 lighter in the wallet. It just doesn't make sense to me, and not questioning both the scheme and the reasons why people might actually use the sceme risks normalising this sort of madness. I'm worried (beyond the terribe precedent it would set) that it would come with the 'I've paid for it, therefore I have a right to...' and 'I've paid for it, someone else will look after me' attitudes that seem to have pervaded modern society, and the casualty will be our hills.
I think people need to understand (maybe with some education) that the outdoors are there to be enjoyed by all, freely and for free. I don't think I'm being elitist; I don't have a problem with 'novices' (can you have a novice camper?) accessing the hills, only with the concept of paying to do so when the paying doesn't actually provide you with any benefit. I think it fosters entirely the wrong attitude. If an increase in popularity comes with an attitude shift which normalises this sort of scheme, it will be to the detriment of us all. And to the detriment of adventure.
> How do you think that charging a small fee to camp on enclosed land was going to be counterproductive?
Charging three times what an average campsite with facilities charges to pitch up, to camp on open fells. Of course it's going to be counterproductive to everyone who manage to camp discreetly and without problem, for free, as things currently stand.
> Charging three times what an average campsite with facilities charges to pitch, to camp on open fells. Of course it's going to be counterproductive to everyone who manage to camp discreetly and without problem, for free, as things currently stand.
You're doing better than me if you can find many campsites that charge less than £7 per pitch without also surcharging for extra people, tents and cars.
So wild camping for free is somehow 'elitist' and a barrier to participation, while charging £20 a night while providing few or no facilities is not?
> Admittedly it was phrased a bit strongly, but the point I was making is that you'll have an identical experience either way - but one person will be £20 lighter in the wallet. It just doesn't make sense to me, and not questioning both the scheme and the reasons why people might actually use the sceme risks normalising this sort of madness. I'm worried (beyond the terribe precedent it would set) that it would come with the 'I've paid for it, therefore I have a right to...' and 'I've paid for it, someone else will look after me' attitudes that seem to have pervaded modern society, and the casualty will be our hills.
> I think people need to understand (maybe with some education) that the outdoors are there to be enjoyed by all, freely and for free. I don't think I'm being elitist; I don't have a problem with 'novices' (can you have a novice camper?) accessing the hills, only with the concept of paying to do so when the paying doesn't actually provide you with any benefit. I think it fosters entirely the wrong attitude. If an increase in popularity comes with an attitude shift which normalises this sort of scheme, it will be to the detriment of us all. And to the detriment of adventure.
> So wild camping for free is somehow 'elitist' and a barrier to participation, while charging £20 a night while providing few or no facilities is not?
Shutting down an enterpirse such as this because it impinges on your definition of wild camping seems pretty elitist to me.
It wouldn't have to get an awful lot of people to try camping in order to achieve more to encourage participation than the braying naysayers.
As for facilities, at least one of the sites was including access to the hottub on the more mainstream site next door in the £20 per pitch fee
> How do you think that charging a small fee to camp on enclosed land was going to be counterproductive?
Basically because from a landowner's point of view it turns wildcamping from an irrelevance to be largely ignored into a revenue stream to be maximized. Someone quietly turning up and pitching their tent is suddenly a fee-dodger, or worse, intruding on the privacy that the paying customers have coughed up good money for. People campaigning to legalize wildcamping across the board are setting out to take away your income. And so on.
Where did it say "on enclosed land", by the way? I had a pretty thorough dig through the site specifically trying to find out what sort of location they were talking about and I couldn't find anything to that effect...
Where I stayed over the weekend was £5 per person per night with no charge for cars, which if there's only one of you is a quarter the price. With the two of us that's half. It had showers, toilets and running water all included.
Plenty of basic sites charge about that - Gwern Gof Isaf and Uchaf on the A5 in North Wales are two that immediately spring to mind.
> Basically because from a landowner's point of view it turns wildcamping from an irrelevance to be largely ignored into a revenue stream to be maximized. Someone quietly turning up and pitching their tent is suddenly a fee-dodger, or worse, intruding on the privacy that the paying customers have coughed up good money for. People campaigning to legalize wildcamping across the board are setting out to take away your income. And so on.
> Where did it say "on enclosed land", by the way? I had a pretty thorough dig through the site specifically trying to find out what sort of location they were talking about and I couldn't find anything to that effect...
> Do you ever wonder whether elitest attitudes discourage participation in outdoor activities?
So it's a simple proposition that makes sense if you have friends but not if you don't
TBH I dont think any of the sites listed lacked toilets or running water, one had access to a hottub on the campsite next door and one even offered evening entertainment on the site next door
It was a simple service at a reasonable pricepoint, I would never go glamping but I wouldn't want to shut down a website because it's not camping.
Sometimes social media seems like a pretty nasty place
> It is best that some things are a bit elitist because they would soon become unsustainable if everyone did them.
I would sort of agree with that to a degree, but why bitch because someone offers an alternative that will divert some of the crowds?
Makes me realise why I have become very disillusioned with camping in the UK.
It is no longer an enjoyable experince imho.
> As for "utterly crap", like all business ventures the customers or lack thereof has proved it wrong.
fixed
Don’t be, it is an enjoyable experience. There’s still every type of camping available, from the big family campsite with decent facilities, to a field and a tap for a few quid, to glamping with hot tubs and Prosecco to genuine wild camping. Nothing has changed.
> To be honest what Phoebe wotsername in The Guardian views as wild camping probably doesn't match my own personal spec for wild camping either
My brother is in a wild camping society.. They never camp, caravans on sites with facilities are the societies norm . But it looks good on his facebook feed especially if you add in some carefully staged photos in appropriate branded gear. A caravan in a field is wild, if you are a city dweller.
There are probably a multitude of reasons, the commodification of something that is free, the piggy backing of something people hold dear for commercial gain, the “men in suits in London” attempting to stamp regulation on something currently unregulated, the “pilot project for wild camping” guff when we have a very successful pilot running north of the border, the use of the U.K. for something only relevant in England and Wales (I don’t know of the relevant legislation in N.I.), the list goes on.
One thing that jumped out at me was the fact it implied wild camping wasn’t allowed in the Lakes, despite the national park website having a webpage on wild camping. That makes it look they are demonising the thing they are saying they want to promote, which lends weight to the fears that it’s more a commercial exercise than an exercise in good faith to raise awareness of and improve the legislation of wild camping.
> Their first tweet had the hashtag #outsideisfree.
Typo. It should have read #outsideisfee...
> TBH I dont think any of the sites listed lacked toilets or running water, one had access to a hottub on the campsite next door and one even offered evening entertainment on the site next door
That sounds like a campsite, then. Maybe they just need to rebrand as 'Aircamping', and ditch the idea that it's anything to do with what has long been known as 'wild camping' (or, just for Robert, 'camping').
No one "shut them down". They realised, in the face of strong but reasoned criticism from a community they thought might be part of their customer base, that they've got it wrong. They've suspended it and are having a re-think, but there's no suggestion that the scheme itself won't go ahead, they will just be pitching it differently. It was, after all, a pilot scheme with the intention of seeing whether or not it worked.
I think they could actually be onto something, if they re-present it as "no-frills" camping or something similar. With so many of the popular campsites now taken over by large pissed-up groups partying into the early hours, I'm sure there is a demand for small quiet campsites with only very basic facilities - perhaps just a bog and a tap - which you can be confident you will be sharing only with a few others (who will be identifiable as they will have registered with the website) or even have all to yourself. This is the sort of camping that many of us grew up with. Their mistake was pitching this as "wild camping". They claimed to be serving entry-level campers put off by concerns about the legal position of wild camping, but stirred up these fears by claiming (incorrectly in my opinion) that wild camping is "illegal", implying the Old Bill will arrest you. They won't, in most cases it is merely trespass and a matter between you and the landowner.
With a bit of re-think this could still be a successful idea.
I'm not sure that much of the criticism that I have seen here or on several Facebook groups could be classified as "reasoned"
> With so many of the popular campsites now taken over by large pissed-up groups partying into the early hours, I'm sure there is a demand for small quiet campsites with only very basic facilities - perhaps just a bog and a tap - which you can be confident you will be sharing only with a few others (who will be identifiable as they will have registered with the website) or even have all to yourself.
I agree, something along a 'quiet site' model would work.
IMHO the last thing we should be doing is encouraging 'wild camping'. That's an open invitation to the dick heads to trash the outdoors. At present it's tolerated and off the radar to an extent.
Once it's "our right" to camp the whole countryside will look like this:
https://twitter.com/TheSunnySlacker/status/1135256551495741440
If the route marking thread was anything to go by, folk on here don’t go to the great outdoors for an adventure, they just go to ‘sleep’ (in this case!)
Wild camping aka camping
Wild swimming aka swimming
Prefixing something with wild makes you an absolute c*nt. Now I’m going for a wild shit after a wild chicken shish
> Now I’m going for a wild shit.
Wild shitting is undoubtedly one of life's greatest pleasures.
Weird; I just call it 'shitting'...
> Weird; I just call it 'shitting'...
I'm thinking of of setting up wildshit.org where people can arrange to pay 20p to shit on other people's doorsteps. Obviously this is only entry-level wild shitting.
> I'm thinking of of setting up wildshit.org where people can arrange to pay 20p to shit on other people's doorsteps. Obviously this is only entry-level wild shitting.
I'll pay you to promote the doorstep of my neighbour. How does £500 sound?... Can't stand the bloke.
> Once it's "our right" to camp the whole countryside will look like this:
Up here in Scotland, it is our right and it doesn't.
The places that get trashed are next to roads because people that can't be arsed to take their rubbish with them also can't be arsed to walk a few km with a heavy rucksack.
Hence the regulation around Loch Lomond, I guess.
Is it legal ? I guess it’s similar to wild camping where it’s illegal but no one really cares as long as you’re sensible with it ¯_(ツ)_/¯
The BMC just posted a statement about this: https://www.thebmc.co.uk/wild-camping-backlash
Except where there are local byelaws, wild camping is not illegal, although it is unlawful. The distinction is important. "Illegal" means there is a law (usually criminal law) saying you can't do something. Wild camping without the landowner's permission is trespass. This is unlawful, in that the landowner can go to court to stop you, but it is not criminal. The police won't get involved (unless it appears you intend to squat on the land, or are causing damage or threatening violence, but these powers are intended to deal with travellers).
Taking legal action to deal with trespassers is time-consuming and expensive, and most landowners won't bother unless there is a significant problem, such as groups of travellers setting up camp for a period of time. Where wild camping in remote places is concerned, firstly the landowner is unlikely to find out and secondly if he does he is unlikely to go to law. At worst, if discovered you can expect to be asked to move on.
In Scotland, camping is now expressly permitted under the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003, although the right probably already existed . In England and Wales, some activities which would otherwise be trespass are now authorised under CRoW (but only on designated Access Land), however camping is not one of them.
The reality is that provided it is done discreetly and sensibly then the legal status of wild camping is merely a technicality and in the vast majority of cases people don't experience any problems when camping in remote locations. The wildcamping website seems to have been an attempt to allow people to obtain the landowner's permission to camp on land which is perhaps not particularly remote (as climbers would see it) but may be a bit more isolated and secluded than the usual campsites. I don't have a problem with this, it was their attempt to brand it as "wild camping" which provoked a reaction.
The second BMC Members Open Forum webinar took place on 20 March. Recently-appointed BMC CEO Paul Ratcliffe, President Andy Syme and Chair Roger Murray shared updates on staff changes, new and ongoing initiatives, insurance policy changes and the current...