DARTMOOR cam-paigner Kate Ashbrook has won The Great Outdoors magazine’s ‘outdoor personality of the year’ award.

Kate, trustee and former president of the Dartmoor Preservation Association, topped a shortlist of eleven others, which included mountaineers Sir Chris Bonington, Alan Hinkes and fell runner Jos Naylor. Kate was nominated as ‘a knowledgeable and fearless campaigner for our rights in the great outdoors’.

She has been general secretary of the Oxfordshire-based Open Spaces Society, Britain’s oldest national conservation body, for 31 years.  She is also president of the Ramblers GB, a trustee of the Campaign for National Parks and patron of the Walkers Are Welcome Towns Network.

Graham Bathe, chairman of the Open Spaces Society said: ‘It is a fitting tribute that Kate should be given such recognition. She works tirelessly to ensure that our rights in the countryside, and in particular our access to paths, greens and common land, are protected. In fact, it is because of her energy and dedication, that so much of the great outdoors remains accessible for us all to enjoy today. Well done, Kate.’

Kate owns 17 acres of common land on western Dartmoor, known as Common Wood, which she manages for its flora and fauna, in particular its habitat for butterflies.

The Open Spaces Society celebrates its 150th anniversary this year.