Response (1)

The Telegraph letter (below) despite being far too long, manages to make no serious contribution to the debate. Instead it is an attempt to score a number of points each one of which I will address. This will unfortunately need more words than I normally post so I will do so in several posts and hope that readers will bear with me.

The letter writer gives the impression that he’s been involved at some stage in attending Blacka Moor meetings.

How he gets the idea that we are the minority or that we might ‘rule’ is beyond me. The minority of those initially involved in the “consultation” perhaps, but as very few people knew about the consultation this can’t be valid. The initial meetings consulting on the management plan were at 2 pm on Monday afternoons and officers from English Nature, PDNPA and Sheffield Council’s ecology officer attended during their normal working hours. The people who regularly walk on Blacka, in the early mornings, in the evening and at weekends, did not know about these meetings and were not informed with notices on the moor. The true feelings of these people were demonstrated in the petition of 761 signatures collected from people walking on the moor. Some minority!

It was after this petition that the conservation lobby made sure that they were in attendance to defeat the intentions of the petitioners. The idea that we might ‘rule’ is of course absurd. The point of us promoting this debate is in order to try to prevail over the misguided orthodoxy which does make all the decisions usually without any serious questioning. Even if we have achieved nothing else we would dearly love to think we've made them re-think their position. Little hope of that as unquestioning arrogance has been the order of the day.