Friends of Blacka Moor

A story of gathering frustration, growing indignation and, ultimately, sheer disbelief.

A group of us got together as ‘The Friends’ in 2005 and set about organising a petition about the management of Blacka Moor. In the aftermath Sheffield Wildlife Trust ran a ‘consultation’, the Icarus Process, and some of the Friends attended this - a series of 7 three hour meetings. A lack of openness and some devious behind the scenes attempts to control the progress of the consultation beforehand had made us very suspicious but we stayed in the process and made good headway with our view of a Blacka Moor that should be free from intrusive management - but with a traditional site worker to deal with maintenance. By the last meeting we seemed to have a good chance of carrying the day and gaining a consensus for our view. At that late stage – the last hour of the final session, SWT and the English Nature representative dug their heels in and refused to countenance a site worker. The independent report of the facilitators of the process made recommendations about future consultation. SWT ignored these recommendations and went back to their original plans while trying to suggest that their strategy had evolved from the Icarus meetings!

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