Opinion: Why I Won't Be Signing The Wild Camping Petition

© Glen Etive the dirty truth

A recent e-petition calls for wild camping to be officially legalised on open land and National Parks in England and Wales. On Wednesday we published a defence of the idea. Now Richard Prideaux of Original Outdoors makes a case for the opposing camp. Far from being a positive development, a change in the law would merely increase anti social camping and littering; just look at the problems that open access is causing in Scotland, he says.


This petition has found itself in my inbox over the last few weeks. It's not a new idea – it is at least the second attempt I have seen to lobby parliament to change the laws surrounding access in England and Wales to make 'wild camping' legal. But I think it is misguided.

Picture copyright: Glen Etive the Dirty Truth  © Glen Etive the dirty truth
Picture copyright: Glen Etive the Dirty Truth

"Following the legalisation of wild camping in Scotland problems with anti social camping steadily increased"

The current situation is this:

In Scotland the Land Reform Act (2003) says that you can camp on most unenclosed land if care is taken. There are conditions and recommendations in the Scottish Outdoor Access code but generally speaking you are free to camp anywhere away from towns, gardens and arable land.

In England and Wales, although we have the right to roam over 'access' land it is illegal to camp without the landowners permission. The exception to this is certain areas of Dartmoor with some fairly strict conditions.

For more info on the legalities (or otherwise) of wild camping in the various parts of the UK see this article Wild Nights Out - Responsible Camping and the Law

The current petition requests that:

"The law should be made similar to the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 covering open land & national parks in England & Wales. Wild camping enthusiasts are not a threat to our national parks & open spaces."

For most of our courses that involve an overnight stay we use land that we pay a fee for, and have a genuine commercial relationship with the landowner. This gives us access to areas and natural resources that we would otherwise be unable to use. It helps make our bushcraft courses more authentic as we can roam around a 90-acre site of mixed mature woodland complete with limestone gorge, fast flowing river and a wide selection of wild food to be harvested.

We do occasionally head into the mountains to 'wild camp' (away from roads and houses, high into the hills) for both courses and personal trips – always practising the ethics of the true outdoorsperson – "arrive late, leave early and leave no trace". In fact I've been wild camping in one form or another since I was eight. You might then expect me to welcome a chance to change the status of wild camping from illegal-but-tolerated, to full legality.

So why am I not signing this petition?

The problem lies in the difference between an ideal world where everybody values and respects our limited outdoor spaces, and the world we seem to live in. Ten years or more of working and living in the outdoors has shown me that there are a significant number of outdoor users who only seem to want to litter, steal and destroy.

I could take you to around a dozen sites within an hour's walk of a road that were once rather nice camping spots but are now homes for broken glass, burnt fence posts and discarded BBQs. Several are actually quite good places to pick up tent spares – when a tent only costs £15 you may as well leave it behind rather than carry it back down the hill, right?

Pitch late, pack up early and leave no trace  © Dan Bailey
Pitch late, pack up early and leave no trace
© Dan Bailey

You might expect the situation to be better in Scotland, where wild camping and full access to our wild areas has been enshrined in law for many years. Well, I'm sorry to say that it is not so.

The obvious case in point (by no means the only one) is the shoreline of Loch Lomond. Following the legalisation of wild camping in Scotland problems with anti social camping steadily increased here. Fire scars, mounds of litter and broken glass, discarded BBQs and human waste became such an issue on the east shore that local anti-camping bylaws were established [see UKH news here, Ed] to police the problem. Now that similar behaviour is increasingly blighting easily accessible sites outside the camping ban there is talk of extending the bylaws to cover roadside and loch shore haunts throughout Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park [UKH news].

The most commonly cited cause is the proximity of Glasgow and the densely-populated central belt. After all, Loch Lomond is a relatively short drive away for most of the population of Scotland, so perhaps it is inevitable that some folk will choose to sit back with a beer or twenty by a roaring campfire and watch the sun set over a lake now contaminated with chemical toilet waste. The next morning it will just be easier to leave it all behind and head back down the road.

This problem isn't unique to Loch Lomond – you can find similar examples across the country [Glen Etive for instance, Ed.]. Even far away from parking access a thoughtless backpacker may gradually lighten their rucksack by leaving food containers and toilet paper behind. Certain places are hotspots for wild campers, and one small pile of rubbish quickly becomes a sea of litter in the most popular areas. This isn't just because of over-use of an area, it is because people seem to have no problem with leaving things behind rather than carrying them out.

"When outdoor education centres are closing around the country and funding for outdoor activities in schools is virtually non-existent the chances of passing on a respect and love for the outdoors to the next generations seems slim"

The creator of the Legalise Wild Camping petition wants to allow wider access in England and Wales so that the general public can learn to respect our green places. Making wild camping legal would encourage more people to go and do it, confident that they are acting wholly within the law, he says.

I applaud the spirit of this petition, and I really do wish it could work out in the way that its signatories want. However this seems unlikely.

Were wild camping to be legalised, more people might head into the hills to enjoy them responsibly. But alongside this, I suspect, those who currently abuse our wild places would continue to do so, confident that they were now 'legal'. This destructive and disrespectful minority would become more brazen, and we would see more littering, waste and damage.

In the UK our wild spaces are limited, particularly south of the Scottish border. They should be protected, and their use managed carefully ensuring that no one group of users is excluded, but that the needs of all groups are recognised. This isn't just the job of law makers, landowners and public bodies – we all need to look after our natural resources.

The current situation, with tolerated trespass, is not ideal but it is better than some of the alternatives.

I believe that education is the key but we need to tread carefully. When outdoor education centres are closing around the country and funding for outdoor activities in schools is virtually non-existent the chances of passing on a respect and love for the outdoors to the next generations seems slim. There is a solution out there, and plenty of us are working towards it, but I fear that if wild camping were legalised in England and Wales in the near future then we would see a repeat of the Loch Lomond problem in Wales, the Lake District and the Peak District.

Now, if you are talking about river access…

Richard Prideaux runs North Wales-based outdoor training and activity company Original Outdoors. They put on everything from first aid and navigation courses through to foraging, bushcraft and wilderness skills courses.

See their website here




2 Jan, 2015
Yes, I agree with you. Society generally has lost one of its responsibilities. There is a good reason for this in my view. One of the unfortunate things that has happened in our society, city dwellers and commuters particularly have been 'trained' to jettison rubbish were they sit because of the ban on rubbish bins on train stations for historical but now hopefully for reasons no longer valid. Bring back personal responsibility for rubbish and there will be a chance for our hills and national parks and wilder places. In the meanwhile restrict wild camping.
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