CUMBRIAN hill farmers have lost their battle to halt a controversial plan by the Ministry of Defence to “take-back” 11,000 acres of common land.

Campaigners have voiced their disapproval at the news that Cumbria County Council has approved the deregistration of the common land owned by the MoD at Warcop.

They claim that the move to acquire three large upland commons near Appleby would bring to an end hundreds of years of traditional hill farming.

The MoD had applied to Cumbria County Council to deregister 4,500 hectares of commons at Hilton, Murton and Warcop fells in the North Pennines area of outstanding Natural Beauty to use for training army personnel.

The Federation of Cumbria Commoners said they were ‘disappointed’ that the MoD has been allowed to privatise a large area of common land in Cumbria in the first enclosure for more than a century’.

Viv Lewis of the Federation of Cumbria Commoners said in a statement to The Cumberland News: “The MoD has already had unimpeded right to use this land for military training and we are suspicious as to what they might try to do next on this land. This is another backwards step for hill farmers and grazers on commons and the whole exercise has been a huge waste of tax payers’ money.”

Their concerns were added to by Rory Stewart, MP for Penrith and The Border, who also said he was disappointed to hear that Cumbria County Council has approved the deregistration of 3,230 ha of common land owned by the Ministry of Defence at Warcop.

He said: “Although I welcome the fact that 23 per cent of the total area - known as Area Victor which included Murton Pike and Murton Fell - was not deregistered, as a supporter of commons and traditional farming in Cumbria, I wanted all the three commons at Warcop, Hilton and Murton to be kept on the Commons register.

“Common land is an asset much valued for the public benefits it provides - over 90 per cent of common land has been deregistered since the 16th century and now the asset sits at a mere 3 per cent of England.

“I have written to defence minister Tobias Ellwood to raise both my concerns and those of my constituents about the case. I now believe it is very important for the MoD to work with locals and mitigate their concerns that the MoD will use this deregistration to limit locals’ access to the area.”

A two-day public inquiry was held in September about plans for the land.

Immediately to the south is the 10,000-hectare Warcop Training Area where up to 5,000 soldiers can conduct live fire exercises.