Another "wild camping but not" scheme

[thenorthwind]

Seems they come along every so often and then quietly disappear. The latest incarnation: https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2025 ... ss-britain

Struggling to see anything positive about this.

[riderdown]

Not sure £15 a night is wild camping

[faustus]

Seems like it is a way for re-wilding sites to offer camping access, with the aim of encouraging volunteering and showing they are opening sites to access that were previously closed. I can understand why and all that. Not for me, as the appeal of wild camping it because it's not 'official' and is mildly transgressive. Also, I don't want to meet or interact with other people, so the idea of paying to join in with something, no matter how good/beneficial it is, is very off-putting!

[jameso]

Seems positive from skimming the article? May not be actual wild camping by some definitions but if you like what it offers .. why not?

[Tractionman]

Seems positive from skimming the article? May not be actual wild camping by some definitions but if you like what it offers .. why not?

I suspect for folks who might want to take their kids on an overnight 'adventure' outdoors, but doing so in the knowledge they're not going to get challenged, I can see the draw. Sort of 'safe' wild-ish camping?

[Lazarus]

Seems.good for what it is
Clearly.we are not the target audience but its a reasonable price for what it is and what it is is better tban a commercial busy site

[ripio]

The article talks about sites across Britain and at least one of the locations seems to be in Scotland, how is that going to square up with the outdoor access camping legislation?

[fatbikephil]

I guess the way to view it is a money spinner for re-wilding britain so not a bad thing all things considered.

The article talks about sites across Britain and at least one of the locations seems to be in Scotland, how is that going to square up with the outdoor access camping legislation?

That's on the coastal path just east of St. A, right next to a massive static caravan site. In theory, if it's an official site then it's exempt from access rights as you are paying to go there (to camp) Plenty better places to bivvy if you go a bit further east

[ripio]

Surely if it's outside the boundary of the caravan site, even if owned by the same person or company, then access rights will apply.
Guess there's nothing to stop them trying to charge people to camp where access rights apply
Of course there are always better places but nibbling away at access rights still needs to be investigated and dealt with or we will lose them eventually.

[Dave Barter]

Sorry but this is just AirBnB for fields. It’s monetised at both ends of the chain and I’d not pay £25 per annum for the privilege. It’s dressed up with nice words.

If you truly believe in a mission to rewild .. get it done without yet again charging consumers. There are many many other ways. Oh .. and let me view the site on mobile without forcing me to sign up for your spam list.

[Lazarus]

If you truly believe in a mission to rewild .. get it done without yet again charging consumers.

What way is there of doing things without money or charging someone( given we live in a capitalist world) ? Moat people are not that altruaiatic and perhaps paying customers means mkre land re wilded , which is hardly a bad thing.
Clearly we are not the target audience but better to camp in a way that supports re wilding than in a way that helps say the caravan and camping club level a field, add hard standing and give you a club house.

[Dave Barter]

If you truly believe in a mission to rewild .. get it done without yet again charging consumers.

What way is there of doing things without money or charging someone( given we live in a capitalist world) ? Moat people are not that altruaiatic and perhaps paying customers means mkre land re wilded , which is hardly a bad thing.
Clearly we are not the target audience but better to camp in a way that supports re wilding than in a way that helps say the caravan and camping club level a field, add hard standing and give you a club house.

Shall we start with openstreetmap? Then maybe Geograph and move on to Wikipedia. Then there’s Citizens Advice and Food Banks …. The user does not pay here. These things are massive and all of them have been formed by people with a mission determined to benefit society. It can be done. I didn’t say it doesn’t need money but why does it always have to be the consumer.

[Lazarus]

Not sure the internet works as a comparison for a campsite, any examples of free campsites for the user funded by cemtral government(cab) or by lots of people.donating and only other people using them (.food banks who also get a lot of food that would otherwise be waste)?
All i have is bothies as a free resource for "campin g" or legislating to force landowners , see scotland or dartmoor.
I think theidea of landowners re wilding and giving is all free access , funded by non users, to camp is wondeful and unlikely to ever happen. It would be great if it did.

[Dave Barter]

How about open access like Scotland then we don’t need heaps of money. All those £25 could go into a campaign rather than someone’s pocket

[boxelder]

How about open access like Scotland

Because.....numbers of 'users'. No open access for camping around Loch Lomond/Trossachs for 6 months of the year - https://www.lochlomond-trossachs.org/th ... ngbyelaws/
It wouldn't be sustainable in many areas, sadly.

[Dave Barter]

How about open access like Scotland

Because.....numbers of 'users'. No open access for camping around Loch Lomond/Trossachs for 6 months of the year - https://www.lochlomond-trossachs.org/th ... ngbyelaws/
It wouldn't be sustainable in many areas, sadly.

You can’t conflate that with Open Access. It’s a problem caused by a tourist pinch point and the NC500. It’s not a problem caused by open access

[boxelder]

How about open access like Scotland

Because.....numbers of 'users'. No open access for camping around Loch Lomond/Trossachs for 6 months of the year - https://www.lochlomond-trossachs.org/th ... ngbyelaws/
It wouldn't be sustainable in many areas, sadly.

You can’t conflate that with Open Access. It’s a problem caused by a tourist pinch point and the NC500. It’s not a problem caused by open access

Agreed, but there'd be any number of similar situations in the Lakes, Snowdonia etc

[Lazarus]

All for open access personally but if its not happening, and its not , then paid camping that supports re wilding seems a better option than Coniston campsite. Not that i am going back to paying.

Agree with boxelder that we would have car camping chaos in hot spots( look at the parking issues in some areas now). Need to say must be x miles from a road etc or just a no chavs rule

[ripio]

How about open access like Scotland

Because.....numbers of 'users'. No open access for camping around Loch Lomond/Trossachs for 6 months of the year - https://www.lochlomond-trossachs.org/th ... ngbyelaws/
It wouldn't be sustainable in many areas, sadly.

You can’t conflate that with Open Access. It’s a problem caused by a tourist pinch point and the NC500. It’s not a problem caused by open access

The problems at Loch Lomond etc was nothing to do with tourists or the NC500, it was purely down to proximity to Glasgow and the central belt population centres,
And there is still open access for 'wild' camping around Loch Lomond and Trossachs all year round just not on some of the Loch shore areas and environs.

[JackT]

I am a member of my local council's Local Access Forum and at our last meeting we had a presentation about access issues on land owned / managed by Natural Resources Wales (equivalent of the Forestry Commission in England).

They have an enlightened attitude to cycling - all their forest tracks are fair game as long as there's not active logging in progress - so I asked about their attitude to wild camping. The NRW staff member said that they were considering designating some locations for motor homes with self contained toilet facilities to park up overnight, possibly for a small fee. I had to explain that I was thinking more of people who were cycling and walking. I got no real response.

In the subsequent discussion, the NRW staff member said that they are facing a round of staff cuts and will there will only be about a dozen staff employed to manage the NRW estate across South East Wales, which extends to several dozen sites, mostly woodlands. I concluded that even if the wanted to police low impact wild camping, they lacked the staff to do so. My reading of this is that if you're wild camping cautious, then NRW land (and Forestry Commission land in England), both are marked clearly on the OS maps, is a very safe bet.

Adjacent to that, I see the UK government has committed to freeing up Land Registry land ownership data, so it should be possible in the not to distant future, to find out, for free, who most bits of land in the UK: https://whoownsengland.org/2025/03/06/h ... -registry/

One caveat being that quite a lot of land is tenanted, so ownership data doesn't always tell you who's responsible for the day-to-day management of the land.

I thought this might be interesting, though none of it will alter my basic operating principle that I am happy to wild camp wherever I please. And if any landowner has a problem with that, they can sue me. Though first they'll have to find me.

[RIP]

Very interesting info that, Jack