ANOTHER piece of land on Dartmoor has been officially designated as a common.

The news has been welcomed by access charity the Open Spaces Society, which lodged the planning appeal.

Planning Inspector Nigel Farthing has granted the society’s application to register about 82.25 hectares of Ditsworthy Warren. The land, about 2.5 kilometres east of Sheepstor, is grazed and uncultivated.

The case turned on whether the common was once part of a historic manor.

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. The move has been welcomed, as the piece of land was excluded from a larger common registered back in 1982.