The Supreme Court case revolved around whether 'ceasing to move onwards' in the course of using Access Land for open-air recreation (within the meaning of the Dartmoor Byelaws) turns outdoor recreation (including camping and going to sleep in a tent or elsewhere) into something other than outdoor recreation which is what is clearly permitted by the local legislation, subject to various controls like not starting fires. The Dartmoor Byelaws were consulted upon by the NPA in 2021 when various revisions were contemplated. This decision-making process by a public body handed the complainants of this case the platform on which to challenge the interpretation of local and other legislation.
The Supreme Court (SC) appeal also touched, amongst other side or technical issues away from the core of the matter such as whether Hansard can be relied upon to document what Parliament had intended to bring about by reference to what was said during debates. These side issues are helpfully discussed from a caving perspective in that various public bodies that we know well might take debate completely out of its original context to further their private agendas.
The SC judgment makes for fascinating reading too, but it makes no difference at all to the earlier CA judgment which was that being enclosed (in a tent etc) does not convert open-air recreation into something different, and that losing consciousness (going to sleep, head injury etc) does not convert something that began as open-air recreation into something different.
Translated to a caving context, being enclosed in a cave or going to sleep in an underground (or otherwise) expeditionary situation does not prevent the activity as a whole from being "an ongoing open-air outdoors recreation situation" when that is its overall character.
Our opposition will now have to fall back on their weaker arguments, such as that cave passage outlines are not drawn out on regular OS maps, and that caves which could be entered above 600m altitude where cavers later might descend to below 600m in ignorance cannot be on Access Land even though the caves (or parts of them) are within the Access Land boundary as shown on OS maps, and other twaddle.
Defra, NRW, Natural England have all, and for a long time in my personal view, been in breach of Section 20 of the CROW Act by giving incorrect information to visitors to the underground environment as to their statutory access rights. These quangos will never risk their internal beliefs being put to proof, so I suggest that we simply ignore them until they adopt a more constructive position on caving.