Tracking the Midhope moor case – Peak District

  Long-term readers of this blog may remember this case in the Peak District National Park from May 2016. This track was constructed in 2015 without planning permission but funded by Natural England despite it being in an SPA, SAC and SSSI. In 2016 the estate applied for retrospective planning permission and over 180 of…

An eagle called Fred

  Press release: Golden eagle persecution 7 miles from Scotland’s Parliament? A young satellite-tagged golden eagle has disappeared in highly suspicious circumstances in the Pentland Hills, just seven miles from the Scottish Parliament building in Edinburgh. The eagle had hatched at a nest site in the Scottish Borders in 2017 and last June, in cooperation…

Wuthering moors (60) – Calderdale losing track (2)

Following a widespread inability to find a planning application for half a track on the Calderdale planning portal – despite there being an application for the other half on the Pendle planning portal – I made my second phone call to Calderdale Council (01422 392237) and had a nice chat with another woman and then…

Wuthering moors (59) – Calderdale losing track

It is still impossible to see the planning application made for a damaging track across blanket bog on the Walshaw Moor Estate on the Calderdale Council side of the boundary. Several others have tried and failed too.  We are told that the planning reference number is 18/40002/AGR but this fails to work when entered into…

Boris sneers at environmental protection

It was an interesting decision to choose Boris Johnson, one of the most distrusted politicians in a distrusted government, to ‘reach out’ to us all over Brexit in a divisive speech entitled ‘Uniting for a Great Brexit‘. Did it work for you? Here is one passsage: ‘We can simplify planning, and speed up public procurement,…