Condition reports for biodiversity of habitat at Challan Hall Pastures (Unit 20 Hawes Water SSSI) and Gait Barrows Pastures (Unit 27 Gait Barrows SSSI) from 1994 - date
Dear Natural England,
Please send me all such reports as have been written about the species richness / biodiversity of Challan Hall Pastures (Unit 20 Hawes Water SSSI, previously units 9,10,11,13,14,15) and Gait Barrows Pastures (Unit 27 Gait Barrows SSSI, previously units 16,17,18,20,21) from 1990 to date. I am interested in any assessments, comments, suggestions or other notes recorded about these sites during this period.
Yours faithfully,
Tim
Dear Tim
Access to information request – Acknowledgement – Request No RFI 4055
Thank you for your request for the information detailed in your email
below, which we received on 13 October 2017. We are dealing with your
request under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004.
Your request is being considered and we will send out our response within
the legal deadline of 20 working days which is 10 November 2017. If, for
any reason, we are unable to meet the deadline we will keep you fully
informed of the reasons for is.
Yours sincerely
Kate Donovan
Adviser - Access to Information
Legal Services
Natural England
Email: [1][Natural England request email]
[2]Make a request for information to Natural England
We are here to secure a healthy environment for people to enjoy, where
wildlife is protected and England's traditional landscapes are safeguarded
for future generations.
In an effort to reduce Natural England's carbon footprint, I will,
wherever possible, avoid travelling to meetings and attend via audio,
video or web conferencing.
Dear Tim
Environmental Information Regulations 2004 – Extension of time – RFI 4055
I am writing to advise you that the time limit for responding to your
request for information under the Environmental Information Regulations
2004, which we received on 10 October 2017, needs to be extended.
The Regulations allow us 20 working days to respond to your request from
the date of its receipt. However as allowed in Regulation 7(1) it is
occasionally necessary to extend the 20 working day time limit for issuing
a response. In this case we regret that we must extend the time limit for
responding by a further 20 working days to 11 December 2017 although we do
hope to respond sooner. This is because the necessary documents are in the
process of being retrieved from deep store which is taking longer than
anticipated.
May I apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.
If you have any queries about this email please contact me.
Regards
Kate Donovan
Adviser - Access to Information
Legal & Governance Team
Natural England
Email: [1][Natural England request email]
From: FOI (NE)
Sent: 16 October 2017 14:48
To: 'Tim' <[FOI #438547 email]>
Subject: Access to Information - Acknowledgement - Request No RFI 4055
Dear Tim
Access to information request – Acknowledgement – Request No RFI 4055
Thank you for your request for the information detailed in your email
below, which we received on 13 October 2017. We are dealing with your
request under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004.
Your request is being considered and we will send out our response within
the legal deadline of 20 working days which is 10 November 2017. If, for
any reason, we are unable to meet the deadline we will keep you fully
informed of the reasons for is.
Yours sincerely
Kate Donovan
Adviser - Access to Information
Legal Services
Natural England
Email: [2][Natural England request email]
[3]Make a request for information to Natural England
We are here to secure a healthy environment for people to enjoy, where
wildlife is protected and England's traditional landscapes are safeguarded
for future generations.
In an effort to reduce Natural England's carbon footprint, I will,
wherever possible, avoid travelling to meetings and attend via audio,
video or web conferencing.
Dear FOI (NE),
I remain keen to find the information requested. I continue to be grateful for your efforts to provide it. I believe that, by law, NE should have already fulfilled my request within the 20 day time frame. I will continue to pursue this request by all means at my disposal.
Yours sincerely,
Tim
Dear Natural England,
I remain keen to find the information requested. I continue to be grateful for your efforts to provide it. I believe that, by law, NE should have already fulfilled my request within the 20 day time frame. I will continue to pursue this request by all means at my disposal.
Yours faithfully,
Tim
Dear Tim
Thank you for your email.
I do apologise for the delay but it is necessary we extend as explained in our email dated 10 November 2017 and we will respond as soon as possible and within the deadline.
Regards
Kate Donovan
Adviser - Access to Information
Legal Services
Natural England
Email: [Natural England request email]
Make a request for information to Natural England
We are here to secure a healthy environment for people to enjoy, where wildlife is protected and England's traditional landscapes are safeguarded for future generations.
In an effort to reduce Natural England's carbon footprint, I will, wherever possible, avoid travelling to meetings and attend via audio, video or web conferencing.
Dear Natural England,
Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.
I am writing to request an internal review of Natural England's handling of my FOI request 'Condition reports for biodiversity of habitat at Challan Hall Pastures (Unit 20 Hawes Water SSSI) and Gait Barrows Pastures (Unit 27 Gait Barrows SSSI) from 1994 - date'.
Natural England has a responsibility to monitor the condition of SSSIs on behalf of the nation. The graziers managing grassland habitats on SSSIs rely on the condition reports produced by Natural England to inform their grazing strategies and improve their performance. As a grazier of 23 years standing, developing good practice in equine conservation grazing on both grazing parcels on Gait Barrows, Natural England's inability to produce copies of the requested reports is indicative of a failure to comply with its own government imposed obligations and suggests that Natural England is hiding its inadequacies behind the 'We know best' unsubstantiated, uncorroborated and arrogant self justification. Equine conservation grazing needs the evidence of 23 years accumulated evidence of effectiveness provided by the condition reports requested. If these documents can't be produced I'd like to raise a complaint with Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/c...
Yours faithfully,
Tim Mackintosh
Dear Tim
Please find attached our response to your request for information
considered under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004.
Please note – The information for Hawes Water SSSI will be sent in a
separate email.
Regards
Kate Donovan
Adviser - Access to Information
Legal & Governance Team
Natural England
Email: [1][Natural England request email]
[2]Make a request for information to Natural England
We are here to secure a healthy environment for people to enjoy, where
wildlife is protected and England's traditional landscapes are safeguarded
for future generations.
In an effort to reduce Natural England's carbon footprint, I will,
wherever possible, avoid travelling to meetings and attend via audio,
video or web conferencing.
Dear Tim
Please find attached the information for Hawes Water SSSI which relates to
your request for information – RFI 4055.
Regards
Kate Donovan
Adviser - Access to Information
Legal & Governance Team
Natural England
Email: [1][Natural England request email]
[2]Make a request for information to Natural England
We are here to secure a healthy environment for people to enjoy, where
wildlife is protected and England's traditional landscapes are safeguarded
for future generations.
In an effort to reduce Natural England's carbon footprint, I will,
wherever possible, avoid travelling to meetings and attend via audio,
video or web conferencing.
This email and any attachments is intended for the named recipient only.
If
you have received it in error you have no authority to use, disclose,
store or copy any of its contents and you should destroy it and inform the
sender. Whilst this email and associated attachments will have been
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can accept no responsibility once it has left our systems. Communications
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effective operation of the system and for other lawful purposes.
References
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Dear Ms Donovan
Thank you for your letter of 8th December. I should like to request an
internal review.
My partner and I, have been the graziers on the Hawes Water SSSI since
1994. We have grazed the site with a small herd of Exmoor ponies
throughout that period. It is unusual in the context of conservation
grazing with British native equines on SSSIs for there to have been a
quarter of a century of uninterupted and consitent habitat management with
broadly the same herd. The accumulation of such an extensive collection
of performance data is an extremely valuable resource which will inform
the development of equine conservation grazing good practice throughout
the UK and Europe.
Similarly, on the other side of the same NNR, an alternative conservation
grazing system, using cattle, has also been operating on Gait Barrows
SSSI. The accumulation of data from this quarter of a century of
uninterupted and consitent habitat management is also a scientific
resource in its own right but is even more valuable as a counterpoint to
provide comparative data and improve the research into the relative
benefits of the two parallel systems, habitat management for biodiversity
of SSSIs, particularly those with a large proportion of fen and wet
grassland, with cattle versus that with equines.
I'm afraid I cannot agree with your assessment that Regulation 12(3) –
Personal Information is an important element in this request. My partner
and I are willing for any personal information generated in the site
reports further to our grazing can be disclosed. The grazing on the Gait
Barrows NNR is provided by a registered commercial company and a matter of
public record in any case. The work, after all, is being done by an
assortment large herbivores.
The importance of the scientific data that has been generated over the
decades is of such importance to the management of wetland that your
decision not to disclose this information is not in the national interest
and will damage the inhibit development of more effective grazing
strategies for years to come.
Please review your decision. I note that the reports you have provided
are in two different formats. You sent Rapid Site Assessment format for
the Hawes water reports and Detailed Site Assessment for the Gait Barrows
reports. It would make comparison much easier if the Detailed Site
Assessment format could be chosen for both. No photographs were included
in the data sent. As a customer of the B4RN hyperfast broadband community
project in Silverdale, there should be no problem at this end in
accepting large downloads of photographic or video material. Please send
all relevent data for the period 1994 to date.
sincerely
Tim Mackintosh
WHAT DO WE WANT? Hyperfast fibre optic broadband connectivity for every
resident of Silverdale, Storth and the Yealands that wants it.
WHEN DO WE WANT IT? It arrived at St Johns Church in October 2016.
WHY DO WE WANT IT? To keep our beautiful villages vital, vibrant and sustainable for the next couple of generations.
Check the website to find out how to get it to your house.
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