"You May Not Confer....."

Taking their cue from Mr Paxman the local managers on Blacka don't like people to talk. This year will see the return of Sheffield Wildlife Trust's discredited policy of farmland management on Blacka with cattle grazing. The equally discredited managers in this organisation are clinging desperately to this policy despite being unable to show benefits over previous years and explain the disastrous results pointed out here. They have not conferred with the public on this and there has been no attempt to have a consultation. Issues have not had a chance to be scrutinised in any meaningful way.

At one time I would honestly never have believed that an organisation of this kind could have habitually indulged in distortion and disdain for the truth but since various scandals in public bodies over recent years it seems nobody cares any more. They see that other people including top institutions, have got away with it and the world has not caved in - yet; the place has simply got more cynical.  So, they think, who bothers?

It all started in 1999 when SWT persuaded the city council to believe a story that a huge bonanza of funds for the city's green spaces would be handed over if the trust was given a lease on Blacka and other sites. This would come from lottery funding and was ring fenced for wildlife trusts with a 25 year lease. This was a lie* but council officers fell for it. The council could have got the funds without leasing the land. Since then there has been no attempt to make truth a priority. All we have had is self interest. You look round for an excuse to use labels like spin and half-truths - but actually that's only the half of it.

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* The officer at Heritage Lottery Fund was amazed that we had been told this.