Introduction: This post is about a track that a grouse shooting estate wants to build across their grouse moor. The land is designated because of its nature conservation importance. I, with the help of some very clever lawyers and the financial support of many of you, have stopped this track being built once on the…
Category: WALSHAW MOOR
Wuthering Moors 76 – more moor burning
Michael Gove has asked moorland owners to be good boys (and girls – although all the landowners in the room at the time were actually men) and to stop damaging blanket bogs through burning them. Burning is carried out so that men (and a few women) can shoot lots of Red Grouse for fun as…
Wuthering Moors 75 – six long years of complaining
Six years ago today the RSPB made its complaint to the European Commission about burning practices at Walshaw Moor and many other driven grouse moors in the UK (See Wuthering Moors 28, 15 October 2012). The RSPB deserves great respect for this important move (even though it is very quiet about it itself these days)….
Wuthering Moors 74 – lessons unlearned
I am grateful to several Natural England staff who have found ways to send me a document recently posted on the NE intranet, but written in March 2013, entitled Walshaw Moor Lessons Learned Action Plan. Considering this document is over five years old, it is of mostly historic interest to very few people, however, there…
Wuthering Moors 73 – burning while Gove fiddles
Blog posts titled Wuthering Moors are about the issue of burning of blanket bogs by grouse shooting estates (e.g. Wuthering Moors 28, 15 October 2012), the inability of the government agency Natural England to do its job properly on regulating landowners on protected moorland sites (Wuthering Moors 68 – the background to an unlawful decision,…
Wuthering Moors 72 – burning issues
Blog posts titled Wuthering Moors are about the issue of burning of blanket bogs by grouse shooting estates (e.g. Wuthering Moors 28, 15 October 2012), the inability of the government agency Natural England to do its job properly on regulating landowners on protected moorland sites (Wuthering Moors 68 – the background to an unlawful decision,…
Wuthering Moors 71
Our lawyers at Leigh Day are in regular contact with Natural England following our successful challenge of the legality of the Walshaw Moor Habitats Regulations Assessment (see here and here). We understand that any new HRA will be informed by ‘‘the peat depth survey that Natural England is seeking to carry out’ . Well done…
Wuthering Moors 70 – EU infraction proceedings
The Guardian has an excellent story on burning of blanket bogs on grouse moors today. Well done to Guy Shrubsole who has done a better job than I managed in getting these details out of Defra. Read the Guardian story here. The papers released by Defra confirm what you will have heard in this blog:…
Guest blog – The Walshaw Moor blogs (1-68) by Richard Wilson (Wuthering Moors 69)
Richard Wilson is an independent professional ecologist with just under 20 years experience. When in the field, he specialises in invertebrate and avian ecology, with a smattering of botanical surveying thrown in for good measure. His background as a consultant has led to a keen interest in EU and UK law in the context of nature conservation….
Wuthering Moors 68 – the background to an unlawful decision
How did NE get into the position of allowing an unlawful Habitats Regualtions Assessment to be done? In this blog I will explain what I think has happened. But let me repeat that it is a serious matter when the government nature conservation agency produces an unlawful Habitats Regulations Assessment – Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? …