More Dartmoor Land Restored As Common

The OPEN SPACES SOCIETY has ensured that another piece of the DARTMOOR NATIONAL PARK in Devon, England has been registered as common land. 

Planning Inspector Nigel Farthing has granted the society’s application to register as common about 82.25 hectares of part of Ditsworthy Warren. 

The land, near Burrator Reservoir about 2.5 kilometres east of Sheeps Tor, is grazed and uncultivated.

In 1968, a tract of land comprising Ditsworthy Warren and Yellowmead Common provisionally was registered as common land by Devon County Council but, following objections, hearings were held by a commons commissioner in 1982. 

The commissioner confirmed the registration of part of the land but refused the registration of part of Ditsworthy Warren because there were no rights of common.

However, the commissioner did not consider (as he should have done) whether Ditsworthy Warren was waste land of a manor.

Part 1 of the Commons Act 2006 reopened the opportunity to rescue lost commons which were excluded in these circumstances.  Under paragraph 4 of schedule 2 to the 2006 Act, part of Ditsworthy Warren became eligible for re-registration. 

It had been brought into force in nine pioneer areas in England, enabling the registration of lost commons in certain circumstances. 

The deadline has now passed for applications in seven of them, including Devon. Applications can be made in North Yorkshire and Cumbria until 15 March 2027.

The application made by the society showed that the land is manorial in origin and that it remains ‘waste land of a manor’ to this day—that is, open, uncultivated and unoccupied.

Frances Kerner, the Open Spaces Society’s commons re-registration officer, said, ‘The newly-registered land at Ditsworthy is situated between the land that was registered by the commissioner in 1982.

“It is particularly rewarding to see it reunited and that another piece of land on Dartmoor has been restored as common land.’

There is public access to the land under Part 1 of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000.

COMMON LAND

Common land is land subject to, or formerly subject to, rights of common—to graze animals or collect wood for instance—or waste land of the manor not subject to rights.  The public has the right to walk on nearly all commons, and to ride on many. 

Commons are protected in that works on common land require the consent of the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, via the Planning Inspectorate, under section 38 of the Commons Act 2006.

In April this year, the Planning Inspectorate granted the society’s application to register as common land about 12 square kilometres of land known as Walkhampton Common, which is situated north of Ditsworthy Warren.

Photo: Part of the newly-registered land, looking west towards Sheeps Tor