Well-Earned Embarrassment

I wasn't involved in the consultations around the National Trust's management plan for its High Peak Estate. But I'm sure it was tackled in much the same way as that for the Eastern Moors run by the partnership of the NT and the RSPB and also that for the Sheffield Moors Partnership.

So  for that reason I have no sympathy with all those managers and others responsible for the mess they are in regarding grouse shooting on the High Peak moors. They deserve their embarrassment.

All the key decisions will have been taken at private meetings of people employed as public servants, the main elements carefully crafted to get difficult issues sidestepped before the *glossy brochure*. That was to be presented for approval by the national park's to those in political committees with a duty to say it should go ahead. These managers would not accept that there could be another perspective that needed to be worked through before any plan was to be sanctioned with a legal agreement lasting decades. They came before the public, or the small number who knew that some process was afoot, with their plan fully formed convinced that they could contrive to push it through with just a few minor adjustments to demonstrate they were "listening".

And there were reasons why this manipulation was necessary. Not just the large funding arrangements that needed to be sorted out with DEFRA, but the fact that all this land had already been designated in various ways with an absolute minimum of public involvement, if that is there was any at all. Those designations include Special Protection Areas and Special Areas of Conservation. All these pre-ordained classifications are just the job for taking away any influence the public can have even in public land. Until an upsurge comes along in the form of justified indignation such as the petition against grouse shooting. Hence the embarrassment.