The ‘Ban the Burn’ group is having a demonstration outside the head offices of Natural England tomorrow morning as NE staff arrive at work.
It’s not only lowland flat places that suffer flooding – Hebden Bridge has had more than its fair share over recent years. Many residents there feel that poor management on the grouse moors in the surrounding hills has contributed to these damaging floods. That’s why they seek to ban the burning of blanket bogs – amongst other reasons simply to keep their properties safe.
Armed with mops and buckets the message of the demonstration will be ‘Don’t fund flooding’.
‘Ban the Burn’ believe that burning heather on blanket bogs increases flood risk downstream, and therefore it should be banned not subsidised.
Jim Peterken, a Ban The Burn supporter, said, “The general public may be interested in the issue that our hard-earned public tax money is being paid to rich landowners to flood us. Grouse moor owners are being paid millions of pounds through the environmental stewardship scheme, to protect the uplands. But they are burning blanket bog and making flooding worse in areas like Hebden Bridge. Not to mention destroying biodiversity.”
Walshaw Moor sits above Hebden Bridge.
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Can Eric Pickles be adopted as their official grip blocking mascot? He would make a great peat plug!
Hope the demo may raise wider public understanding of the issue.
Hebden Bridge was the first Walkers Are Welcome town in the UK. I hope it won’t have to rename itself Swimmers Are Welcome.
Good on them for protesting but did they really expect expect to find many NE staff in the office on a Friday ? You’d find more people on the decks of the Marie Celeste.
It’s half-term week as well.
The best time to protest outside a Natural England office ? Mon to Thursday 9.30 – 10am when most of them arrive or 4.00 – 4.30pm when most of them go home.
GWS – truly, truly pathetic.
That’s a really low jibe. By far the vast majority of staff in NE are hard-working and committed to public service in the name of the environment, working way beyond their conditioned hours without extra reward (or recognition often). You may think that because NE operates a forward thinking policy which considers its workers and allows flexibility in balancing the competing demands of work and home life. It should be congratulated for doing so in the face of incessant pressure on its funding and staff levels. I know a lot of them and all that means is that I can talk from a position of knowledge rather than ignorance. NE staff are working to change this parlous situation from within rather than take the easy approach and throw rocks at good people from the outside. Any idiot can do that.