I’ve been at Cheltenham racecourse this week, and it was just before the last race on Wednesday that our lawyer, Tessa Gregory, phoned me to say that we had had a response from Natural England to our pre-action protocol letter.
It wasn’t a very interesting response as NE said that because they were dealing with the RSPB challenge too they would reply to both us and the RSPB at the same time on 22 March. So we have another few days to wait. Here it is:
We have replied saying, basically, we’re not impressed and they ought to be able to respond to us in the normal time period. We have stressed that we fear this might prejudice our case and we asked a series of questions to be answered by 4pm today ‘in lieu of your [NE’s] substantive response‘. Here is our response:
As far as I am aware we have had no response by NE at this time.
We’ll have to wait and see.
But in the meantime, on sunny days like today, at a very few favoured locations in England and a lot more away from grouse moors in Wales and Scotland, you might just be lucky enough to see the Hen Harrier’s skydancing display. So here’s a link for you to enjoy over the weekend and in lieu of Natural England’s response to our letter. Have a good weekend.
And, in case you were wondering, thanks to Katie Walsh, I won a reasonable amount of money on the Champion Bumper after talking to Tessa.
[registration_form]
In breach of the pre action protocol already. Not a good start Natural England. Sadly they’re only guidelines with no real legal clout.
I find this quite bizarre. You don’t go into an explosive situation like this without working out your position – NE ought to have been able to respond on the day, and the idea of it being fair to the officers is almost beyond belief – clearly, the management and the Minister responsible have landed Ne and its staff in a position for which it is unprepared and for which one suspects there may be little enthusiasm below the politicised senior management level.
Are Natural England and or Defra fit for purpose any more? Long past a useful sell by date (NNRs excepted & should remain in public ownership & management)?
In anticipation of lots of dislikes, from staff who daren’t speak out in fear of pension or job loss & those who use them as a shield ….
Congrats on your success at Cheltenham. You must be ahead for 2018 then.
Stall, stall, stall and stall some more……… eventually it has to be faced.
“We consider it reasonable for NE to respond to both letters within the same time frame [in order to] promote consistency in the responses”.
What utter nonsense. Are they suggesting that they are incapable of holding a consistent line of argument in two letters written 10 days apart? Why make the pretence that the delay is in anyone’s interest, apart from their own, when the argument they use for doing so just makes them look like clowns.
For reasons suggested above, this reply smacks of severe incompetence which is very worrying given the organisation’s responsibilities.