Selective Amnesia

A view of Blacka that SRWT's staff are specially fond of is the one that they've chosen to put at the top of their draft plan for Blacka. It was used also at the beginning of a brief presentation at the public engagement meeting in September. I've seen it used by them in another meeting held the previous year. It struck me at the time that you didn't need to have explored Blacka very thoroughly to take that picture; in fact you didn't need to go more than a few paces onto the site. So it's possible to walk along the level track from the car park, take that picture and then walk back to your car without getting your shoes muddy.

But there's a rather more interesting aspect of that photograph. If you had stood on the same spot a few years ago it would have looked quite different because an unsightly power line would have dominated the view. Here's how it would have been a few days ago if still here but this time taken looking back towards the place that picture was taken from. (somewhere I've got a better quality version)

SRWT were not interested in removing that intrusion until their hand was forced by Friends of Blacka Moor who set the action in motion at a RAG meeting leading to CPRE getting involved (they had been delegated by PDNPA to recommend cases where power lines could be removed). The point is that without the intervention of FoBM the lines would almost certainly still be there and SRWT might have had to get their boots muddy going further onto the moor to get a picture.

The reason for raising this at this point is that I've been reading SWT's draft plan, all 95 pages of it, and can find no reference at all to Friends of Blacka Moor. That is odd because many other groups with less direct involvement, in and knowledge of, Blacka do get mentioned and do get acknowledged. Yet FoBM has contributed more than most to very important aspects of Blacka. Unlike the single interest groups such as cyclists, horse riders, bird watchers and ramblers, it has constantly reflected concerns about the whole of Blacka, its landscape and wildlife, its general recreational role, and its place within the local uplands and the country as a whole. Its members and supporters have put in more hours at consultations that any other groups over 14 years and attended council meetings and many other events and publicly celebrated the site in a way that SWT/SRWT has not done. There is another group that does not even get mentioned and that is Dore Village Society. It is DVS along with FoBM who were responsible for getting the dignified plaques about J.G. Graves legacy installed after waiting ages for SWT to do something. The failure to mention DVS is also astonishing in that the society has made a number of significant donations to SRWT's funds after the latter had appealed to them, usually for specific purposes such as nest boxes.

So why would SRWT forget to mention these groups while making a point of mentioning others? It's the rules of the playground again I'm afraid. "You're not always my friend so your not my friend at all" Both groups, when it has been necessary have spoken up for Blacka when SWT was doing something they thought unacceptable.