OLDs at West Pennine Moors SSSI

The long story of protecting the West Pennine Moors as an SSSI has come to its administrative climax with the publication of the legal documents following an NE Board meeting in July. Because new SSSIs aren’t that common, and new upland ones certainly aren’t, I actually glanced through the document with some interest, when my…

Hoddlesden Moss wind farm proposal withdrawn

A proposal for a wind farm at Hoddlesden Moss has been withdrawn. I guess this is because the recommendation of council staff was to refuse it. And I don’t have to guess that that was partly because of the biological interest of the West Pennine Moors SSSI. And we know that pressure from locals over…

Breaking news: West Pennine Moors SSSI – at last!

Today NE notified the West Pennine Moors as a new SSSI.  Great news.   For a more considered view on this, come back later today, or perhaps tomorrow.   A case for celebration.     Previous blogs on the West Pennine Moors: Natural England seem to have forgotten the West Pennine moors, 2 April 2015; …

West Pennine Moors

Natural England moves with the pace of a snail when it comes to protecting wildlife sites but with that of a cheetah when it comes to issuing licenses to bump off wildlife. Because of NE foot-dragging in the area of Gate Zero there now appears to be a race against time to get the West…

Mini round up

I’ve been away for a few days and I’d love you to guess where I’ve been. A mini-round-up: worrying signs on the West Pennine Moors that development is planned (more on this later) a month ago, and 7000 signatures ago, I posted this and tomorrow morning the RSPB will reply here M&S are not responding…