George Eustice was right to suggest that we (for it is our money) should withdraw subsidies from grouse moors. Take a look at this fine crop of burned ground and realise that you are probably paying £56/ha to its owner every year.
That £56/yr certainly pays for the matches needed to set this land alight.
This land is managed for the ‘sport’ of shooting Red Grouse for fun and yet it attracts agricultural subsidies. Do you think that it should continue to be subsidised by you in a post-Brexit world? I don’t, so I wrote to my MP supporting the minister’s plans.
Minette Batters and the NFU need to decide whether they can continue to expect every man and woman in the UK to continue to pay 23p/day into agricultural support if any of that money goes into subsidising this scorched earth. Proper farming? I don’t think so…
These photographs come from the Peak District a few days ago.
There’s not much point in NE wasting their time going and looking at this as Walshaw Moor conclusively proved they won’t get any support from their political masters. In some areas no doubt NE still has discretion – but not in this one and if you still believe in the idea that NE is ‘arms length’ from Government, forget it – past events with both NCC and EN showed that arms length simply meant far enough away to give a decent punch on the nose.
Roderick – yes, it’s almost as if we need a people’s movement to enforce the law and nominal government policy – and in our own National APrks too! What a sorry state of affairs.
“…arms length simply meant far enough away to give a decent punch on the nose.”
Very nicely put, Roderick! Sums it up pretty well.
This is the type of reporting that will eventually see the demise of grouse shooting.
The reporting raptor persecution will play a part in that too, but peoples’ livelihoods will be affected by this burning practice, and once the public realise that then they will kick-off far more than learning about any other of the poor practices concerned with moorland management for gamebirds.