Feppin' Cheek!

The transformation of the major central area of Blacka Moor from prime free recreation land before 2001 into farmland is entering its conclusive phase as Sheffield Wildlife Trust begins work on applying for Higher Level Stewardship through Natural England. Despite totally insincere statements that this will only go ahead with the willing cooperation of local people through consultation, none of which has happened, they are already beginning the process.

This brings up an argument that was ongoing from 2004 to 2006 when claims that farming designations and the grants which follow them would mean a fundamental change to the site even greater than the inclusion of an added paragraph about conservation in the covenant. At that time our concerns were dismissed by various people including councillors, officers and local groups with a cosy ‘stakeholder’ status such as Ramblers or the BMC.

The pledge that 5 years of grazing as an experiment would be the limit of the implementation of SWT’s policy is now exposed as the lie we guessed it to be. If they had intended to stick to this they would have discussed thoroughly how to resolve the ‘experiment’ through a proper process of evaluation and consultation before any thought of continuing with more farming and grazing management. Instead they are going ahead with arranging a Farm Environment Plan (F.E.P.) which is the essential prelude to HLS. This has confirmed by Natural England.

There is, deeply embedded within the culture of the local conservation industry, a lack of openness in its relations with the public that is hard to distinguish from fraudulence. It’s a culture and that means anyone who tries to deal with it or even to remove it from the inside will have a struggle. It is simply easier to get the results you want by sundry short cuts and dubious stratagems.

Sixty years of the new Elizabethan age and 66 years from the Butler Education Act and sundry educational reforms in between have delivered to us local administrators and managers of national charities who do not recognise the moral bankruptcy they practise when dealing with the public.

Would that matter so much if they had only left us large areas of natural beauty of landscape where we could get away from them?