I say again – well done National Trust! The long-awaited NT response to the responses to their consultation document on management of the High Peak is out (click here). Despite being under lots of pressure from men in tweed the NT have, so far, held their nerve and make a robust response to people’s views. …
Tag: Natural England
Catfield Fen revisited
This blog has touched on the subject of the drying out of Catfield Fen on four previous occasions; 30 May 2012, 22 August 2012, 10 September 2012, 30 September 2012. Whilst this blog, Standing up for Nature, has not paid much attention to Catfield Fen for nearly a year the owner of the site, Tim…
Wuthering Moors 32
Blogs entitled ‘Wuthering Moors’ form a series of articles about the Walshaw Moor Estate and its relationship with Natural England and Defra. Defra were supposed to reply today to my complaint over their late and uncommunicative response to an FoI request. I had an email from them on Friday saying that they have now decided…
Guest Blog – Action wins! by Jonny Rankin
Based in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, I have a number of interests but I am always content to be out birding, which is usually every day walking my dog Fender. I do a lot of birding in Suffolk Breck but of course go further afield too. Knowledge speaks, wisdom listens, but in the end, it’s…
Should we be grateful?
Sometimes governments say they are going to do 20 daft things (they never put it quite like that) and then only do 10 daft things and they expect us all to be grateful. There ought to be a word for it – a Greek word – maybe there is – for a victory which you…
Wuthering Moors 31
Blogs entitled ‘Wuthering Moors’ form a series of articles about the Walshaw Moor Estate and its relationship with Natural England and Defra. Regular readers of this blog may remember that I submitted a request for information to Defra about their response to the RSPB complaint to Europe over the Walshaw Moor affair. I received no…
Guest Blog – Facebook Nature by Lucy McRobert
Lucy McRobert is an environmental historian, nature writer, wildlife blogger and Creative Director of the ‘A Focus On Nature’ scheme, which seeks to encourage young people into nature conservation careers in Britain. She gained a First Class degree from the University of Nottingham in 2012; she has written for Nottinghamshire Today in conjunction with Nottinghamshire…
I hope they sink (VII)
Yesterday East Cambridgeshire District Councillors voted by eight votes to three to approve a boathouse complex at Ely (although subject to addressing ecological conditions via conditions and with the approval delegated to the Head of Planning). It is exceptionally unusual for a planning decision to go ahead in this way when the statutory advisor on…
I hope they sink (V)
This is the fifth blog on the subject of Cambridge University Boat Club’s plans for a new boathouse (here, for new readers, are links to its forerunners; Blog 1, Blog 2, Blog 3, Blog 4). At the time of my previous blogs I had not seen the objections to the proposed development (which is much…
So what is Defra for, exactly…?
Owen Paterson is keen on showing people photographs of himself with dead squirrels and Richard Benyon is the richest MP in Parliament, but David Heath is completely invisible. That’s Defra for you. The last Labour government came to ‘power’ in 1997, and by autumn 2000 it had enacted the CROW Act which widened the right…