People, eh! Is it any surprise we can't have nice things. You know in Englands' entirety legal wild camping is restricted to one small area, Dartmoor. Why? Historic inequity and a landed class who maintain control of much of the land, in part, by cultivating the spectre of feckless townies marauding about the countryside causing untold damage to our cultural heritage. A discarded tent and a couple of bags of crap* left amongst the stands serves to make their point. Of course, the truth is there are legions of wild campers who camp all over the country regularly and responsibly without issue, and they far outnumber the dullards. That's not how it works though, and sadly you see sights likes this far too frequently, each lending ammunition to those who seek to keep us excluded from the majority of our own country. If you've kept abreast of the news you'll have seen even the meagre access we enjoy is always under threat somewhere. Recently in Devon a wealthy landowner tried to put an end to wild camping on a swathe of Dartmoor, this time he lost; or a picturesque Dorset estate acquired by an investment company, as a consequence the entire village is to be evicted, with the removal of established permissive access to much of the lands to boot. We should always be mindful not to do the work of our opponents for them.
*Credit where credit is due, they had bagged their crap, which is more than most. Still.
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