Keep off my land! Landowner wins right to bar ramblers from Dartmoor’s tallest Tor
This article explains “Ramblers and climbers have been banned from one of Dartmoor’s most historic sites. The beautiful Vixen Tor has been closed off for good after landowner Mary Alford won an eight-year battle to keep walkers off her land. Her victory comes after a fight which included two planning inquiries and a series of mass trespasses to protest against the Tor’s closure.”
I believe it comes from the same tap root that sustains the anti-development lobby in their approach to challenging the National Planning Framework. It is I acknowledge an extreme example, but gives further clear expression to the process by which, all those who feel they have a particular stake in their own sense of the countryside, seek to pickle it in aspic.
David Cameron has come out in favour of protecting the countryside and the National Trust now feel sufficiently enthused to re-open discussions with Greg Clark about the NPPF – perhaps they would be equally well engaged in throwing their considerable weight behind issues like preventing the loss of access to sites like Vixen Torr!