Last October over 90 Hebden Bridge residents signed a letter which the campaign group Ban the Burn sent as the residents’ submission to Natural England’s Uplands Evidence Review (UER).
The residents’ letter urged Natural England to ban burning and draining on Walshaw Moor Estate blanket bog, in order to allow degraded blanket bog to recover. Active blanket bog slows run off from the tops, and so has an significant role to play in reducing flooding in Hebden Bridge.
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The community wind turbine in Blackshaw Head has received its first Feed In Tariff payment. £1611 covered the period November and December 2012. This was for the generation of 5444 kWh of electricity, said Paul Wilson, treasurer of Pennine Community Power (PCP) – a Community Benefit Society with 65 members.
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Protect our NHS – online articles we like:
The Health Hurricane-A Year of Destruction in the NHS
All from the excellent Red Pepper
This is a quick round up of some issues that are likely to shape the NHS after the Health and Social Care Act comes into effect from 1 April 2013:
The Waste Treatment Private Finance Initiative Report states that the cost to Calderdale Council of borrowing £9.2m to invest in the construction of the Private Finance Initiative Bradford waste incinerator/combined heat and power generator would be around £564,000 a year. But the Report says that despite the cost, Calderdale Council would “look to” save £200K/year as a result of the investment. I can’t figure this out. Someone please explain!
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A week after the Department for Communities and Local Government refused to hold a public inquiry into controversial plans for a waste incinerator in North Yorkshire, Calderdale Council has announced that tomorrow, on Monday 11 February, Calderdale’s Cabinet will consider a report which recommends the Council invests £9m in a new waste incinerator to be constructed at Bowling Back Lane in Bradford.
If you want to tell the Cabinet what you think of this, here is the list of Cabinet members, with links to their email addresses.
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An inspiring occupation of a library in Barnet that caused the Tory “privatise everything” Council to backtrack and reopen the library instead of selling it off. Excellent video by Oonagh Cousins, Revolting Productions.
However, the people’s victory, though real, is partial – the Council has handed over the building to a local group who will run the library on a voluntary basis. So no librarians and no wages, and presumably, no money to buy books.
A Polite Revolution from Oonagh Cousins on Vimeo.
US magazine Mother Jones reports that,
“while the Food & Drug Administration dithers with voluntary approaches to regulation, the meat industry is feasting on antibiotics and sending out product tainted with antibiotic-resistant bugs.”
The FDA last year proposed a set of voluntary ‘guidelines’ that aimed to reduce the meat industry’s antibiotic habit. It seems they might just as well have saved their breath to cool their porridge, as this infographic from Pew Charitable Trusts shows.
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The 2012 Report Burning on Deep Peat and Bog habitat in England: Reconciliation and re-examination of results from English Nature Research Reports 667, 698 and unpublished data, which we are making public here as the result of an Environmental Information Regulations request, presents the shocking conclusion that
“the voluntary [Heather and Grass Burning] code, Natural England management agreements, and site designation are having little demonstrable effect in protecting either bog or blanket peat areas from fire use.”
Continue readingI have sent Natural England an Environmental Information Regulations (EIR) request, (RFI 1870) to find out about Natural England’s Appropriate Assessments, Consents and Environmental Stewardship Agreements that cover blanket bog burning on Natura 2000 sites across England.
(To see what these terms mean, please skip to the end of this post.)
This follows Ban the Burn’s complaint to the European Commission about Natural England’s “probably unlawful” Consent to Walshaw Moor Estate’s blanket bog burning on the European-protected South Pennine Moors site.
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