Why Not Frack Blacka?

News that fracking is to be considered and allowed on SSSIs and in national parks has prompted articles in the press likely to bring on public outrage. Typically they are illustrated with picturesque scenes calculated to induce a horrified reaction. The government's U-turn on this seems cynical even by the standards of present day politics. They couldn't get away with despoiling such cherished sites could they?

But what about SSSIs on land where the management has done nothing for natural beauty? In fact it's perpetuated the industrial exploitation and uglification of the landscape. Places where only a few lone voices have spoken up for a better, more natural, more beautiful, more wildlife friendly approach over many years and where the powers-that-be have spurned these calls, spent more resources on attacking nature with chain-saw and poison spray, have colluded in the killing of more wildlife than they have encouraged? Places where ugliness seems celebrated through the daubing of many acres with farm animal excrement. Places of severe and unrelenting dreariness where natural succession is discouraged in favour of drab treeless wastes? Places like Blacka's sheep enclosure - 85 acres of it? Places like much of the Sheffield Moors?

Who's going to speak up for places like this when those who manage show scant respect themselves? There will be voices surely telling us that this place takes up far too much public money and gives very little back. All those handouts have gone on barbed wire fences and stone walls that no local people asked for. And of course all that farm subsidy, such a drain on the public purse.

Just imagine the case being made by a clever PR firm on behalf of the fracking industry:

I can hear them arguing that this is not a specially lovely place by most picturesque standards and wouldn't it be better if it were making a contribution to the economy rather than the opposite?

But here's a thought: I don't believe the wildlife trust would make much of a fight against this, nor the city council. There would be some kind of compensation scheme for the wildlife trust, I'm sure, whereby they get funds to further develop their empire and their business. And the council would be on their side.  And what about the PDNPA? They have their officers whose job it is to develop the economy. I remember one of the questions asked of us at a consultation a few years ago asked us to make suggestions about how the moors might contribute to the economy. I facetiously suggested they discover oil under the hills to some laughter; that wasn't what was expected at all. Now that feeble joke could be  prophetic.

But isn't it time for people to get their act together now?

How are we to claim this is a beautiful place worth defending if I can see scenes today like these today?

(The sheep was limping along in a field covered with sheep defecation )

This post has more evidence.