Here’s an outline of the key points in the Walshaw Moor Estate (WME) Environmental Stewardship Agreement and the related March 2012 Natural England/WME Notice of Proposal and Consent  to Carry Out Operations on a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

Information I have obtained from Environmental Information Regulations requests suggests that the Environmental Stewardship Agreement may be based on a flawed environmental impact assessment (technically called an Appropriate Assessment). If this is in fact the case, this raises the need for an investigation into the appropriateness and legality of the Environmental Stewardship Agreement. Ban the Burn campaigners are asking the European Commission to investigate this question.
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