An amazing local reaction – I wish I could be there PRESS RELEASE On Sunday August 12th, flood-hit residents of Hebden Bridge and campaigners from across the country will set out from the town centre on a BAN THE BURN protest walk to the Walshaw Moor grouse-shooting estate. Following the walk, the BAN THE BURN national campaign…
Tag: Walshaw Moor
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Could it be true, as people are suggesting, that on top of their own £1m legal costs NE picked up the tab for Walshaw Moor Estates’ legal costs? And could those legal costs have amounted to £3m of taxpayers’ money? I’ll ask NE and Defra – I’m sure they will want to tell us.
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Natural England spent over £1m of your money pursuing legal action against the Walshaw Moor Estate for alleged breaches (but a mere 43 of them) of the Wildlife and Countryside Act and the Habitats Directive. The alleged offences related to the building of tracks, paths, car parks, grips, ponds, butts and other associated infrastructure for…
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This email exchange shows that the cost of the abandoned legal proceedings by Natural England against the Walshaw Moor Estate were over £1m of taxpayers’ money. This is your money and you have been given no satisfactory explanation for why the case was dropped when a few months earlier NE had been pursuing the Walshaw…
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This email between Natural England’s Andrew Wood and others (including some recipients whose names have been withheld) contains several matters of interest; Its title – this is the first time the the Secretary of State’s, Caroline Spelman’s, name has appeared to my knowledge in this case. It appears that back in December 2011 this case…
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We are beginning to shake some of the truth out of Defra over the Walshaw Moor affair. Below I attach four documents received either by myself or others through Freedom of Information Act and Environmental Information Regulation enquiries. They are: 1) a letter from the Secretary of the Moorland Association, Martin Gillibrand, to the Defra…
Let’s hear it for the buzzard – and the osprey
I fled Scotland a day early and am now back home – the weather drove me away. I did consider turning up at the Scottish Game Fair on Friday, but standing around in the rain, in a soggy field full of people moaning about buzzards didn’t really appeal to me. I see they will get…
Wuthering Moors 19 – what is Defra hiding?
If you track back to 2 April on this blog you will find that I made Freedom of Information Act and Environmental Information Regulation requests to Defra and Natural England. Defra failed to respond to those requests until sending me a letter dated 4 May saying that they needed another 20 working days to respond. …
Wuthering Moors 18 – your help needed please
For new readers – put ‘Wuthering’ into the search facility on this blog to catch up. However, in short: Natural England were quite a long way down the line in prosecuting an upland landowner for alleged offences in connection with moorland management when it suddenly stopped all action and reached an agreement with the estate….
Bonfires and beacons
Despite the soggy weather, beacons have been lit across the UK to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee. Spare a thought for the inhabitants of Tristan da Cunha and their Jubilee beacon. When the most remote Jubilee beacon in the world was lit, its flames were fuelled by the bodies of invasive species of plants. Work to…