News: West Pennine Moors heading for notification

Natural England is taking forward the West Pennine Moors for SSSI notification in the coming financial year. Hooray! It’s obviously not a done-deal, just an almost done-deal, but it is the freeing up of a log jam that never should have happened. This is very pleasing news and the next time i see someone senior…

Gate Zero and the West Pennine Moors

Access to information request – Partial release – Request No RFI 3031 regarding all records of, and documents related to, NE Board discussions on SSSI, SPA, SAC designation programmes, ‘gate zero’ and changes in strategy and approach from the present day back to the beginning of 2011 Many thanks for your letter and enclosures dated…

West Pennine Moors complaint to NE over their response

Dear [Natural England] I wish to complain about the information that you sent me in response to this request (RFI 3031).  I request an internal review by NE of whether it has discharged its obligations under EIR. Specifically, the paper NEB 49 13 is heavily redacted and contains little information about how the ‘Gate Zero’…

A barn of special scientific interest? West Pennine Moors

And in case any readers of this blog think that site designations do not matter too much, I hear of a flower-rich meadow which is in the proposed (for a long time) West Pennine Moors Site of Special Scientific Interest that is now destroyed and has a barn built on it. As a local has…

What the frack? West Pennine Moors

Just in case any readers of this blog think that notification of SSSIs is mere paper-shifting that doesn’t mean anything on the ground have a look at this very helpful map of areas offered for fracking by the Oil and Gas Authority. The areas SD61 and SD62 on the West Pennine Moors have a bright…