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…
Category: West Pennine Moors
Hoddlesden Moss wind farm proposal withdrawn
A proposal for a wind farm at Hoddlesden Moss has been withdrawn. I guess this is because the recommendation of council staff was to refuse it. And I don’t have to guess that that was partly because of the biological interest of the West Pennine Moors SSSI. And we know that pressure from locals over…
Breaking news: West Pennine Moors SSSI – at last!
Today NE notified the West Pennine Moors as a new SSSI. Great news. For a more considered view on this, come back later today, or perhaps tomorrow. A case for celebration. Previous blogs on the West Pennine Moors: Natural England seem to have forgotten the West Pennine moors, 2 April 2015; …
West Pennine Moors
Natural England moves with the pace of a snail when it comes to protecting wildlife sites but with that of a cheetah when it comes to issuing licenses to bump off wildlife. Because of NE foot-dragging in the area of Gate Zero there now appears to be a race against time to get the West…
Mini round up
I’ve been away for a few days and I’d love you to guess where I’ve been. A mini-round-up: worrying signs on the West Pennine Moors that development is planned (more on this later) a month ago, and 7000 signatures ago, I posted this and tomorrow morning the RSPB will reply here M&S are not responding…
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…