The crowdfunder to support legal action against Natural England‘s failure to protect Walshaw Moor launched yesterday at 1pm – by 10pm it had already reached the first target of £5000. I’m so relieved and so grateful. This means that we can move forward with confidence and that I am not left with a big debt!…
Category: Wuthering moors
Wuthering Moors 64 – a crowdfunder
I’ve been writing about Walshaw Moor for years – this is my 64th blog on the subject! But now I am asking for your help to protect this site from further damage. In fact, I am asking for your help to protect this site from Natural England who have reached a management agreement…
Wuthering moors (63) – waiting for an answer
I sent this FOI/EIR request to Natural England a week ago: Please send me the Habitats Regulations Assessments for the Catchment Restoration Plan for Walshaw Moor Estate and all associated documents, email correspondence etc. Note that I am requesting the Habitat Regulations Assessments – plural, as I believe that more than one version exists and…
Wuthering moors (62) – this deep!
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…
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…