Stewardship

Environmental Stewardship earned by farmers and landowners for putting sheep on the land is justified because of the public good that it delivers, or so it's claimed. As the brakes screeched and the horns sounded when these woollies chose to dash across the fast A625 Hathersage Road one might have concluded that helping to reduce the number of motorists on the roads was part of that public good.

It's quite possible that many more of them will have found their way onto the grassy verges when they see what this group have discovered. Responsibility for these animals is shared between Sheffield Wildlife Trust, the farmer (who lives some 20 miles away) and the Dark Peak branch of The National Trust. I've let SWT know about this several times but as they've put a block on my emails bouncing them back as 'undeliverable' I can't know if anything's got through. I've now told them using a different email and that seems to have worked.

Of course it's possible they are all too busy to deal with such mundane and tiresome everyday tasks as looking after your farm animals, being sat at the desk working out if the acreage of the grass verges along the road can be claimed from Rural Payments Agency and Natural England as part of Higher Level Stewardship.