What areas are covered by the new CRoW Act open access rights?
The right of access under the CRoW Act applies to areas that have been defined as ‘Open Country’ (mountain, moor, heath and downland). Generally it also applies to registered common land, but as the Dartmoor Commons Act (1985) PDF icon (180Kb – PDF Help) already gives a right of open access to the commons, that element of the CRoW Act rights will not apply here and the access rights under the Dartmoor Commons Act remain in force. Where there is a pre-existing access agreement between the landowner and the National Park Authority, the access rights under the agreement will remain in place for the duration of the agreement.
