Guest blog – An end to Peak pessimism by Alex Lees

Alex Lees is a lecturer in biodiversity at Manchester Metropolitan University and lives in the Peak District. Twitter: @Alexander_Lees             Towards a wilder future – an end to Peak pessimism? Story 1. Nearly three decades ago I visited mid Wales on a family holiday. It was a successful quest for…

Tracking the Midhope moor case – Peak District

  Long-term readers of this blog may remember this case in the Peak District National Park from May 2016. This track was constructed in 2015 without planning permission but funded by Natural England despite it being in an SPA, SAC and SSSI. In 2016 the estate applied for retrospective planning permission and over 180 of…

NEWS: National Trust and grouse shooting in the Peak District

The National Trust is moving towards a new future on grouse shooting on their land in the Dark Peak of the Peak District National Park – although it’s a rather complicated one. For new readers, the National Trust, a conservation charity, is parting company with its shooting tenant in the Peak District due to what…

Peak District hush-up

You may remember that in a recent public consultation on the way forward, over 40% of respondents to the Peak District National Park future plans mentioned the impact of grouse shooting, heather burning and illegal persecution of birds of prey, on the ability of the National Park to meet its objectives. The Peak District has…

Dr Coffey’s reading list (23) – please help the Peak District

Dr Therese Coffey is the junior minister at Defra. Now that Gavin Gamble’s e-petition in favour of banning driven grouse shooting has passed 10,000 signatures Dr Coffey will need to sign off a government response.  And it looks as though Gavin Gamble’s petition will reach 12,000 signatures today. In order that she does not make…

Peak District National Park takes note?

Just as the Yorkshire Dales NP recently consulted the public on its way forward, so too did the Peak District NP. Although the PDNP has so far been less open than the YDNP on the results of its consultation, this blog understands that new ‘Areas of Impact’ (ghastly jargon) have been inserted into the plan…

Peak District update

I’m grateful to the NT in the Peak District who have forwarded my contact details to their shooting tenants in the Peak District  just in case any of them would like to have their grouse shooting filmed over the next few weeks. I’ll let you know if I hear from any of them. The NT…

Rattled of Peak District

An everyday story of shooting folk? Some fell-runners were enjoying a run around part of the Dark Peak one day in the middle of last week. When they returned to the Strines Inn a gamekeeper who identified himself as being from a particular shooting estate approached the runners in the pub car park. The gamekeeper…