Thanks. The other PJ Probert joke is that DWP say he owes them £50k - from undeclared tour earnings! He may be in Blackpool - it'd fit! The skylarks were inflicted with his greatest hits during the last sunny spell.

I'm under a sub-contract to Natural England. They pay about half the true cost of building a wall, and are absolved from any Health and Safety and Public Liability concern. I knew them when they were English Nature. This new shooters' road is on land under one of their schemes - they'll just not have been told and the land is so remote as to be perennially unvisited by them. The office just works from top class maps from OS. And anonomous phonecalls, I would think. There's a huge SSSI, marking the northernmost point in the Pennines, that's mainly under this shooting estate. Zero birds of Prey - visitors allegedly harassed - two, maybe more, shooting roads built without common Planning Permission - in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. (It's certainly not 'well-managed').

That particular field however, is under Environmentally Sensitive Area management, which is still administered by DEFRA. There's a huge swathe of ESA pasture here been herbicided from a helicopter - or rather the bracken has. I've seen the sprayer twice, but can't recall in which years - two thousand and something. Last year, probably in September, when I'd returned to the town, the spray concentration was stepped up and has caused complete defoliation, in places. The May 2008 aerial images on FlashEarth show it perfectly. Dead riverbanks with an occasional holly tree still growing - but nothing else. The team leaders Google up easily enough! But you'd need to twist their arms to get them to do anything at all about it - they favour grouse shooting - allegedly - as part of the 'leftover from MAFF' ethos - also allegedly. This is another of the things the baddies don't want me to take a photograph of (I'd better get over there quick with my little Olympus before anything starts growing) ...