Here are some images of the proposed path of the track across Walshaw Moor: all taken at the weekend by the wonderful Bob Berzins. Bob tells me ‘It is all deep peat up there and has a great wilderness feel. There is very little sign of vehicles being used so far. It would be…
Category: WALSHAW MOOR
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…
Dear Mr Gove! Wake up to this mess!
Dear Mr Gove You have a mess on your hands and despite the fact that you inherited much of it, you have let Natural England dig you into an even deeper hole. But in any case, it’s now your mess because you are sitting at the desk at which the buck stops. Why would you…
Wuthering Moors (58) – NE fails to regulate burning on blanket bogs
The Moorland Management Plans (MMPs) for places such as Walshaw Moor are largely a response to the complaints to the EU Commission by the RSPB and the Hebden Bridge ‘Ban the Burn‘ campaigners (Hebden Bridge sits below Walshaw Moor in the Calder Valley) over the nature and scale of burning of moorland on grouse moors….
Wuthering Moors (57) – NE paving the way
Walshaw Moor Estate is applying for planning permission to build a big new track through an area of moorland protected for its wildlife interest. Track building has been highly contentious on this site for many years (see here, here) and the statutory nature conservation agency, Natural England, is well aware of that. However, NE is…
Wuthering Moors (56) – the shameful capitulation of state nature conservation
I’m grateful to NE for responding rather rapidly to my EIR/FOI on the moorland management plan for the notorious Walshaw Moor area of west Yorkshire. Although I am grateful to NE for providing the plan, which you can see is very oddly called a Catchment Restoration Plan, they should be deeply ashamed of its content….
Wuthering Moors (55)
Rumour has it that Natural England has agreed a highly contentious Moorland Plan with the Walshaw Estate – the famous grouse moor, owned by millionaire businessman Richard Bannister, which sits above Hebden Bridge. I wrote in this blog on 2 October 2017 ‘It remains to be seen whether NE will really dig their heels…
Let’s see the back of Craig Whittaker in Calder Valley
Calder Valley was the constituency that provided the most signatures for my e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting. In fact it produced 871 (out of 123,077) signatures. The rival e-petition, supporting grouse shooting, accumulated just 31 signatures in Calder Valley (and only 25,322 overall). And yet Conservative MP for the Calder Valley, Craig Whittaker, spoke…
Flood risk at Hebden Bridge (Wuthering Moors 54)
Hebden Bridge in the Calder Valley has experienced terrible floods in recent years. Locals blame the severity of these floods on the intensive management of Walshaw Moor for driven grouse shooting. Now there appears to be some new scientific evidence to strengthen that view. In May 2014 I visited Hebden Bridge and spoke to the…