SWT and Blacka Moor

Sheffield Wildlife Trust was a small organisation before the council decided to hand over to them several sites across the city of which the biggest is Blacka Moor. There were questionable issues about how the handover was carried out, and these and other questions have continued to be asked ever since. Being a wildlife trust, and of course a charity, many people are disposed to think well of them and to support them. They devote significant resources to public relations but the content of their publicity often doesn’t bear looking into. Some of us who have had experience of their consultation process over 7 years are unlikely to take on trust anything that they say.

If one was only allowed to say one thing about SWT it would be this. That they are an organisation committed before everything else to expanding their business and protecting their jobs. I suppose it’s not unexpected after all. Most businesses are doing much the same thing, and even public sector institutions feel the need to put their own interests and survival pretty high up the priority list.

It’s just that with SWT they carry on this role both blatantly and with such a measure of incompetence on the ground that one shakes one’s head with disbelief. “Before everything else” is crucial. It’s certainly well before the duty to behave honestly and decently because there have been examples of deviousness that should shame an organisation receiving public funds and with charitable status.