SWT Plottings - An Update

In July SWT excluded a number of local residents who are regular walkers on Blacka Moor from attending their so-called public consultation meetings. I am one of those excluded. They knew this was anti-democratic and they expected to be criticised for it. So they invented a pretext for their action. They made up a story, one which was a total lie, that those people they did not want at their meetings had behaved impossibly badly to the extent of being aggressive to other people at the meeting they had held in June. There is not a shadow of truth in this. They compounded this disgraceful act by communicating the lie to local councillors and the local MP, apparently in order to warn these public figures to expect complaints. They have caused considerable offence in taking this action and few of the people involved ever want to go near any of SWT’s staff again.

Now it has become even clearer exactly why this unfortunate organisation decided to do what they did. They did not want to have an open and intelligent discussion about their plans for Blacka over the next 4 years. They knew that we have definite views and that these views are well founded and based on regular use of and observation of the site over many years; they also know that we have been able to challenge successfully some of their own ill thought out ideas in the past.

It is now abundantly obvious and should be brought to the attention of visitors to Blacka Moor and other local residents that SWT are not to be trusted.

Reference to the minutes of their last meeting – in September but the minutes only circulated in December illustrate this again. They are intending to increase the number of cattle on Blacka Moor next year and they will probably be older cattle. This exposes what Friends of Blacka Moor believed all along – i.e. that when they were claiming that the opponents of grazing were being unreasonable in objecting to cattle grazing because there were only 11 heifers, this was only the thin end of the wedge. They will increase the numbers, slowly at first but we fear a continuing year on year growth in livestock numbers. We have no doubt that when Sheffield councillors were asked to grant a lease on the land to SWT they would never have agreed to do so had they known about their plans. We believe that on an area as large as Blacka a required number of beasts to do what SWT say they want would be nearer 100 – a number of course which would be unacceptable to users and others and a number which would cause considerable damage to the character of the moor and the fabric of its paths, its bilberries and many other problems.