Yearly Archives: 2013

Ban the Burn takes blanket bog campaign to Brussels

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The European Commission is to investigate the legality of Environmental Stewardship payments to Walshaw Moor Estate.

Hebden Bridge campaigners who want a ban on burning and draining blanket bog – a rare, priority protected habitat – are challenging the legality of a £2.5 million Environmental Stewardship Agreement (ESA) that Natural England has awarded the grouse-shooting Walshaw Moor Estate, part of the South Pennines Site of Special Scientific Interest and Natura 2000 site.

In Brussels on 10th January, Hebden Bridge resident Dongria Kondh asked Jean Francois Brakeland, head of the European Commission’s unit for enforcing EU environmental law in the UK, to investigate whether Natural England and the Defra Secretary of State acted unlawfully in deciding that Walshaw Moor Estate’s grouse shooting operations would not adversely affect the integrity of the protected moors.

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Conservation watchdog’s approval of grouse shooting estate operations on protected moors may fail key legal test

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Information I have obtained through Environmental Information Regulations requests shows that Natural England’s 2012 environmental impact assessment of Walshaw Moor Estate’s  grouse shooting operations appears not to pass a crucial legal test.

The assessment fails to show that no reasonable scientific doubt exists that Walshaw Moor Estate’s burning and draining of blanket bog (and other operations) will not damage the integrity of the protected conservation site. This calls into question the validity of the £2.5m Walshaw Moor Estate Environmental Stewardship Agreement, since the ESA  is based on the Appropriate Assessment conclusion that WME’s operations will not have adverse effects on the integrity of the site.
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Hebden Bridge Matters…to Hibu/Yell Ltd

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OK so let’s start 2013 as I mean to go on – having a good clear out.

First up on my pile of junk is the fact that the Hibu plc/Yell Ltd advertising directory, masquerading as a “community” magazine for Hebden Bridge, doesn’t pay its writers and photographers. The Hibu magazine content submission agreement specifies that:

‘You (the “Author”) hereby irrevocably grant to Yell Limited, its affiliates, and Magazine (collectively the “Publisher”) the unrestricted, perpetual, worldwide right to use the Content freely in whole or in part in any manner or medium now known or hereinafter devised for any purpose, commercial or otherwise, without compensation.’

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