ARMY training at Cramber Tor on Dartmoor has been granted an extension for ten more years ? despite strong opposition from conservation groups.

Dartmoor National Park Authority voted last Friday to renew the military?s licence to use Cramber Tor, south of Princetown, for dry firing exercises ? which do not involve live ammunition ? but insisted on a number of conditions.

The authority received more than 1,700 individual objections to the application, with groups including the Open Spaces Society, Dartmoor Preservation Association and the Ramblers? Association voicing disapproval of renewal.

Kate Ashbrook, general secretary of the Open Spaces Society, said the group felt ?thoroughly let down? by the decision.

She said: ?It?s very bad news for Dartmoor. The committee seemed to think their job was to consider wider defence issues, which it is not, their job is to defend the national park.?

She said the group would continue to monitor the military use of Cramber Tor ?very closely?.

Ms Ashbrook had told the planning committee meeting: ?The only way the MoD?s claims can be fully and independently examined and tested is at a public inquiry.?

Ms Ashbrook said she believed much had changed since the licence was last renewed by the authority in 1992. She said the importance of national parks had never been more widely recognised by government, as restated in the recent DEFRA review.

She said the Army?s use of helicopters, pyrotechnics and ambush exercises in a ?truly wild area of the national park? would have a damaging effect.

Ms Ashbrook rejected the judgement of planning officers that the application was not a major development.

?If military bashing of 2,000 acres of national park wilderness for ten years is not a major development, what is?? she argued.

Commander Army Training South West, Lt Col Charlie Nutting, said: ?We believe the committee have taken the sensible decision based on the evidence in the environmental assessment we submitted.

?The National Park Authority have placed a series of really quite stringent conditions on us, which help to safeguard the natural beauty of Cramber Tor.?

Lt Col Nutting said the Environmental Impact Assessment produced by the MoD showed there was significant difficulty in distinguishing between damage caused by military use and ordinary public use.

The MoD had applied to continue using Cramber Tor for dry training for a further 20 years, but were granted consent until January 2013, with a review in the first half of 2008. The authority also banned training on Sundays, public holidays and during the month of August and requested a strategy for ongoing monitoring of the impact of military training.

Ms Ashbrook said conservationists would now work towards lobbying the Duchy of Cornwall not to renew the Army?s licence to use Northern Dartmoor for live firing exercises.

Troops currently use Okehampton and Merrivale ranges for live firing, but Ms Ashbrook said she was hopeful a full public inquiry would be carried out when the licence comes up for renewal in 2012.

The Army has used the 2,000 acres of moorland at Cramber Tor for dry training since 1980.