Now then.....I'm telling.........

SWT always defers to Unnatural England. This can be frustrating for those of us who try to get them to do something (or stop doing something) that just seems basic common sense. Small fry bureaucrats commonly look up to big-time, big-budget bureaucrats, and that's what we've got here. A polite request has to go in followed by a lengthy trawl through several hundred tons of paperwork, policies, procedures, guidance and recommended approaches to see whether the proposed action clashes with the terms of some directive or other or some management plan that's been gathering dust on the shelves for the last seventeen years. If you're lucky within 12 months you'll get the go ahead and be told that yes you can remove that bit of barbed wire or that stone on the bed of a stream or be given a hand written docket that can be exchanged for an entrance permit for a visiting songbird from abroad to stay in the country for the summer.

I may be exaggerating a little.

Today's example concerns our recent good cause, making it possible to use the footpath across Cowsick the way we did before the more loony of the conservationists decided to make it more boggy by installing toy plywood dams across it, (courtesy of Blue Peter?). When we suggested removing one or more of the dams the answer came back from Unnatural England that "work would not be permitted that could interfere with the hydrology of the bog".

Well the amazing news is that something has been done that definitely interferes with the hydrology of the bog. At the north end somebody has effected a sudden and dramatic reduction in the level of the water.
A short inspection of the area did not reveal what had been done but the suspicion is that one or more of the panels has been punctured below the water line.

The question is ... do the puppet masters of NE know about this ? If so why have they changed their tune ?