United Utilities know better too?

[Nearly]

How publicly-funded anti-pollution projects are creating expensive environmental disasters.

UU and NE plant trees to stop soil eroding into reservoirs.
Trees mostly die.
Plastic tree guards degrade and microplastics wash into the reservoirs.
Tree guards, wire, cable ties and posts still litter the moorland.
Cost £3m. Effect : broadly negative on water quality.

 

[NLF]

How publicly-funded anti-pollution projects are creating expensive environmental disasters.

UU and NE plant trees to stop soil eroding into reservoirs.
Trees mostly die.
Plastic tree guards degrade and microplastics wash into the reservoirs.
Tree guards, wire, cable ties and posts still litter the moorland.
Cost £3m. Effect : broadly negative on water quality.

NE have encouraged and funded a lot of tree planting in this area but refuse to fund proper deer fencing (i.e. sufficient to keep red deer out). Hence the deer eat the trees and you are left with large numbers of discarded plastic cones which never get cleared up.

I asked NE why they refuse to fund proper deer fencing and they said it looks unsightly. Well, not as unsightly as thousands of cones scattered over the hillside. And deer fencing works, otherwise its just an expensive way to feed deer.

 

[steveR]

Damning report, shades of the report from the South West on the behaviour of NE. @egbert ?

 

[egbert]

Damning report, shades of the report from the South West on the behaviour of NE. @egbert ?

The rewilding ideology in NE staff, RSPB, and UU is a real problem, and threat to our whole way of life.

NE may have come unstuck here- we're awaiting Ministerial action now, in the wake of the Fursdon Review.

UU/Haweswater?
I haven't read all of the above report yet- very good what I have read so far.
Does it explain that the farm at the foot of the valley wasn't Comp Purchased originally, and is in private hands?
That farm has fell rights- and was indeed bought by current owner with hefted sheep.
It is only happenchance that the buyer was a retired/downsizing banker.
He-I believe- agreed to take UUs coin to remove his hefted sheep, where a dyed-in-the-wool farmer might've told em to go hang.
He's a nice enough guy, but it's a great shame it wasn't one of us dinosaurs in the seat when UU came knocking.


UU have bragged about their business model, but I recall trawling their finances revealed they'd received monstrous subs, and had frittered it all away in vanity rewilding sh1t.
Standing back, the finances were actually a disaster.

They also brag about the employment dividend, because since they've got rid of the pesky sheep, even more people are 'employed' on the land.
Alex Thompson- C4 news- made a report on this.
Sadly, they omitted to mention that the jobs 'studying rewilding' and such, can't exactly be scaled up, and will need to be externally funded forever anyway.
Like Isabella Tree saying rewilded land can earn loadsa money glamping eco-tourism etc.....despite the obvious error that the market can only ever be so big.

UU/RSPB/NE are a great big economy sized sack of sh1t I'm afraid.
(I'm tired...someone else can insert the grown=up version)

 

[paul&mandy]

All the trees planted to the east of Thirlmere didn't grow. All the plastic guards are at the bottom of the valley. Trees will never grow up there. It's too exposed.

 

[DirkSquirrel]

 

[NLF]

Does it explain that the farm at the foot of the valley wasn't Comp Purchased originally, and is in private hands?
That farm has fell rights- and was indeed bought by current owner with hefted sheep.
It is only happenchance that the buyer was a retired/downsizing banker.
He-I believe- agreed to take UUs coin to remove his hefted sheep, where a dyed-in-the-wool farmer might've told em to go hang.
He's a nice enough guy, but it's a great shame it wasn't one of us dinosaurs in the seat when UU came knocking.

Was he the fellow who had trouble with his shotgun certificate - the police arbitrarily decided not to renew and he had to take them to court? Its a nice looking farm. He's put a lot of work and money into it. I presume it was formerly owned by Lowthers.

Isn't part of the difficulty that when the RSPB took their sheep off the common it meant that the other flocks wandered off their hefts into the ungrazed areas making shepherding difficult?

UU have bragged about their business model, but I recall trawling their finances revealed they'd received monstrous subs, and had frittered it all away in vanity rewilding sh1t.
Standing back, the finances were actually a disaster.

The RSPB used to publish accounts for their Swindale farm. It was supposed to show that you could farm for the environment but still have a viable commercial farm. What it actually showed was how effective the RSPB were at getting their spoon into the environmental subsidy trough and that the farming part was irrelevant. Which is probably why they no longer appear to publish accounts.

 

[egbert]

Was he the fellow who had trouble with his shotgun certificate - the police arbitrarily decided not to renew and he had to take them to court? Its a nice looking farm. He's put a lot of work and money into it. I presume it was formerly owned by Lowthers.

Isn't part of the difficulty that when the RSPB took their sheep off the common it meant that the other flocks wandered off their hefts into the ungrazed areas making shepherding difficult?


The RSPB used to publish accounts for their Swindale farm. It was supposed to show that you could farm for the environment but still have a viable commercial farm. What it actually showed was how effective the RSPB were at getting their spoon into the environmental subsidy trough and that the farming part was irrelevant. Which is probably why they no longer appear to publish accounts.

Yes, that's the chap.
I've never been there, but know him fair well. The house sounds like it's been a labour of love.

And I think I'm mistaking UU's financial reports with RSPBs, ...and yes , all it showed was that they were actually tipping money down the drain if you stripped out the massive subs

 

[ollie989898]

Those plastic trees guards should be banned. They aren't needed 99% of the time anyway.

 

[Post Driver]

Around here if you don't guard or fence then the deer will hammer any planting. I have done beat ups, admittedly on conservation type rough pasture and the voles have chewed the whips off.

Those plastic trees guards should be banned. They aren't needed 99% of the time anyway.

 

[steveR]

Around here if you don't guard or fence then the deer will hammer any planting. I have done beat ups, admittedly on conservation type rough pasture and the voles have chewed the whips off.

Fine, but the companies should collect the damned guards after 4=5 years...

 

[DirkSquirrel]

Was he the fellow who had trouble with his shotgun certificate - the police arbitrarily decided not to renew and he had to take them to court? Its a nice looking farm. He's put a lot of work and money into it. I presume it was formerly owned by Lowthers.

Isn't part of the difficulty that when the RSPB took their sheep off the common it meant that the other flocks wandered off their hefts into the ungrazed areas making shepherding difficult?


The RSPB used to publish accounts for their Swindale farm. It was supposed to show that you could farm for the environment but still have a viable commercial farm. What it actually showed was how effective the RSPB were at getting their spoon into the environmental subsidy trough and that the farming part was irrelevant. Which is probably why they no longer appear to publish accounts.

Hello. Where can I find these Swindale accounts? Are the old ones still available? Thanks

 

[DirkSquirrel]

Yes, that's the chap.
I've never been there, but know him fair well. The house sounds like it's been a labour of love.

And I think I'm mistaking UU's financial reports with RSPBs, ...and yes , all it showed was that they were actually tipping money down the drain if you stripped out the massive subs

Hello. Regarding this: "all it showed was that they were actually tipping money down the drain if you stripped out the massive subs". Can you remember which year's accounts this was? Thanks

 

[NLF]

Hello. Where can I find these Swindale accounts? Are the old ones still available? Thanks

They appear to have removed them.

Perhaps eight years ago, the RSPB Swindale website had a link to a couple of years of summary accounts which may have been a couple of years old. They weren't proper audited accounts, but showed the headline figures of the profit and loss. From memory they were getting something like 350k in subsidy vs perhaps a few tens of thousands from livestock sales. Of course, I don't know how much of the subsidy was capital grants versus how much was for filling in a form.

If you want to see what their current subsidy is I think this might be it.

Defra, UK - CAP Payments Search

If the link doesn't work, go to the cap-payments website and enter "Farming for nature" in the beneficiary name box. One result comes up with a CA10 postcode. I'm fairly certain that is the RSPB Naddle and Swindale farm. It throws up the results below - this is for the FY22 subsidy year i.e. the Dec 21 BPS. The direct aid (BPS) is rather more than I would have expected, the Rural Development (which includes stewardship) somewhat less.

BENEFICIARY NAME	POSTCODE PREFIX	TOWN/CITY	RURAL DEVELOPMENT	DIRECT AID	MARKET SCHEMES	TOTAL	RESPONSIBLE PAYING AGENCY	BENEFICIARY CODE	DETAILS
Farming For Nature	CA10	PENRITH	£86,795.30​	£176,303.95​	£0.00​	£263,099.25​	RPA​		Details

The RSPB used to brand their Swindale farm "farming for nature" but now they appear to have rebranded it "Wild Haweswater" which sums it up nicely.

 

[egbert]

Hello. Regarding this: "all it showed was that they were actually tipping money down the drain if you stripped out the massive subs". Can you remember which year's accounts this was? Thanks

Joined Friday Dirk?

I would guess this was 3-4 years ago, could be longer....a few years into their big plan as I recall.

I can likely look it up if it matters.

 

[egbert]

They appear to have removed them.

Perhaps eight years ago, the RSPB Swindale website had a link to a couple of years of summary accounts which may have been a couple of years old. They weren't proper audited accounts, but showed the headline figures of the profit and loss. From memory they were getting something like 350k in subsidy vs perhaps a few tens of thousands from livestock sales. Of course, I don't know how much of the subsidy was capital grants versus how much was for filling in a form.

If you want to see what their current subsidy is I think this might be it.

Defra, UK - CAP Payments Search

If the link doesn't work, go to the cap-payments website and enter "Farming for nature" in the beneficiary name box. One result comes up with a CA10 postcode. I'm fairly certain that is the RSPB Naddle and Swindale farm. It throws up the results below - this is for the FY22 subsidy year i.e. the Dec 21 BPS. The direct aid (BPS) is rather more than I would have expected, the Rural Development (which includes stewardship) somewhat less.

BENEFICIARY NAME	POSTCODE PREFIX	TOWN/CITY	RURAL DEVELOPMENT	DIRECT AID	MARKET SCHEMES	TOTAL	RESPONSIBLE PAYING AGENCY	BENEFICIARY CODE	DETAILS
Farming For Nature	CA10	PENRITH	£86,795.30​	£176,303.95​	£0.00​	£263,099.25​	RPA​		Details

The RSPB used to brand their Swindale farm "farming for nature" but now they appear to have rebranded it "Wild Haweswater" which sums it up nicely.

Be fun to see how much they retained of the £263k!

According to Alex Thompson - and that was only a few months back- it's all wonderful.