Yorkshire Dales have a lead mountain to climb.

As the Yorkshire Dales National Park drags itself, with the help of a public consultation, towards the twenty-first century it may have to work very hard on some of its board members to take the journey.  Adrian Thornton-Berry is a member of the YDNP Management Plan Steering group committee, a Moorland Association committee member and…

Lead faces new threat of ban

I’ve known of this issue working its way through the grindingly slow processes of the EU for quite a while and was wondering when the heads-in-the-sand shooters in the UK might notice that the world is changing around them. The European Chemicals Agency is looking at the use of lead ammunition with a view to…

Tom Kitchin and Saturday Kitchen Live

I’m quite surprised by how many readers of this blog are (apparently) devotees of Saturday Kitchen Live – personally I’d never heard of it until this weekend. But they had the chef Tom Kitchin (I bet he gets even more remarks about nominative determinism than I do) preparing a grouse, black pudding and something else…

Tales from the Bird Fair (1)

Several people have sent me this menu from the Barnsdale Lodge Hotel from the Bird Fair weekend. It’s up to every hotel to decide whether it wants to support the industry that attacks the RSPB, attacks Chris Packham and attacks our wildlife as well as increasing flood risk, water treatment costs and greenhouse gas emissions….

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…