Natural England stops woodland planting on a shoot

Fieldsports Channel

For more on this story, visit  https://fieldsportschannel.tv/naturalenglandwoodland

Transcript

00:00 Steve Houston was looking to plant trees on his shoot, but Natural England turned him

00:04 down with, among other things, this remarkable statement.

00:08 Our news editor Andy Ford spoke to Stephen about his experience.

00:12 It's always been my dream to have my own shoot.

00:14 I was lucky enough to rent some land at my previous house and ran a small shoot from

00:20 there and then we purchased the farm up at Sunnybank and we were looking to try and get

00:27 a nice family shoot put together to invite friends and just have a nice day out.

00:34 We were looking at trying to plant approximately 15-ish hectares of woodland on the hundred

00:46 and a little bit hectares of land that we've got here.

00:49 Everyone involved, kids in the beaten line, I'd like to think would do 100 Bird Day and

00:56 it will be more on the shoot that we rented previously.

01:03 The menu for the day was on the shoot card because to me it's as much a social event

01:08 with the food that's supplied as well as the shooting that you have during the day.

01:13 What's your position to what we're planting?

01:17 There was a lot of legislation put forward as to why we couldn't plant in certain areas.

01:24 An example of that was a predator shadow that our furthest woodland is 4.8 hectares.

01:33 At the time of application it had no predator shadow because it was less than 5 hectares.

01:40 They've altered those rulings now so any woodland has got a predator shadow.

01:47 Unfortunately I'm 1,100 metres between my two sets of trees that I have at the moment

01:56 which means any planting I do will make the predator shadow slightly larger which means

02:04 I can't plant anywhere in that 1,100 metres.

02:08 What on earth is a predator shadow?

02:10 I presume it's where a predator is in a woodland and they only fly 500, well 499 metres away

02:20 and then turn around and go back to their home because they're not going to fly the

02:25 full 1,100 metres to the woodland.

02:29 With correct management and vermin control which all good shoots do, you're doing nothing

02:37 but enhancing the environment.

02:39 One of the phrases that you've talked about a little bit which when we were speaking before

02:48 was about the lack of biodiversity that a pheasant should, for example, supply.

02:54 What's your view on that?

02:56 That's one of the things they've thrown at you as an objection.

02:59 This was the main reason for contacting the different shooting organisations and I'd

03:08 like to say that you're the only ones that have taken up the gauntlet, have taken Natural

03:12 England on on this.

03:14 Everyone else has just shied away from it but Natural England in their report said that

03:20 there was no biodiversity gain with woodlands that are planted for game shooting which there

03:28 is so much research out there showing that game shooting, it works with the countryside

03:35 and we're there, we're not just there for the shooting of the pheasants.

03:39 Like I say, it's a day out, you're taking the full countryside and you want to see all

03:45 these other birds and wildlife around.

03:47 Do you think there's an agenda from the person that came out to see your site?

03:52 I have the feeling that she wasn't a shooting person and there was no looking at how we

04:03 could carry out the work in a positive manner.

04:07 There just seemed to be a lot of legislation brought in as to reasons why we couldn't do

04:14 what we would like to do with the farm.

04:17 Sorry about the background noise, Stephen was in a busy office and we got a response

04:21 from Natural England which I have put into our story on the subject, link to that below.

04:25 (applause)

04:27 (applause)

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