Says Steve Yandall

Mr Crowe, of Natural England, on a recent 'walk' across Carnyorth Common(with others including Andrew George MP) admitted that the recently finished ESA(Environmentally Sensitive Area)scheme was fraudulently used by grant recipients that FAILED to provide the inputs agreed to gain funding.

1. NE failed to enforce inputs.
2. areas were degraded(Toogood report).
3. NE used this degradation to justify HLS rather than MAKING ESA work.
4. NE included those abusing ESA as partners and recipients of HLS.
5. NE failed to mention the real reasons for ESA failure in justifying HLS but DID use public/equine degradation as a basis for change.

Further to the above ANY obstacles to establishing the HLS agenda were ignored.Disabled and able access.CROW Act.Highways Act.Enclosure of land not owned by stewards.Public consultation and participation etc.Add to that disinformation,VERY poor science and 'benefits' that were/are unachievable and a picture emerges of a body that should not,under any circumstances,be involved in any decision making processes.Especially not public inquiries.

The recent St Dennis incinerator inquiry is an example of establishment inbalances that result in inquiry decisions that are almost preordained.The peer acceptance of NE's 'expertise' and 'expert' witness overrode challenges in that Marsupella profunda(a World rarity whose colonies are measured in square centimeters) was judged NOT to be under threat from the incinerator.50% of the UK population existed on this site and 'expert' testimony stated that the colony was safe.In fact NE had allowed,against European law,two out of three colonies to be lost(these colonies were nominated to Europe to be protected) and were likely to allow the St Dennis colony to become extinct in line with their own statement to Europe in 2006 of "likely to become extinct".A preordained result perhaps ?Of course the loss of two colonies pushes up the importance of the St Dennis colony which now probably represents 70% of the UK population which,incidentally,is only present in Cornwall.There has been no scientific analysis of Marsupellas tolerance to pollution.No effort(until NE were in receipt of letters I sent to Europe)to manage Marsupella in line with Euro Law but an inquiry accepted false science that no damage would occur to this rarity.St Dennis represents what may be the Worlds largest colony of this plant but the decision was taken,against best practise,to gamble on a species existence rather than guarantee that the status quo remained unchanged.

The fact of the loss of Marsupella on two sites and NE's inability to manage these sites speaks volumes about NE's expertise,will and accountability.The presentation of expert witnesses that actually cannot have expertise because of a paucity of research ,in my common view,is no more than false witness and the introduction of risk to Marsupella's environment is no more than bad practise which underlines the UK's real stance on biodiversity.The inspector however was remiss in not picking up the incorrect environmental information which accompanied expert witness.Assumptive rather than analytical.