Under the new Labour government land reform is being discussed under the English Devolution Bill with proposals for a new community right to buy. The examples given are urban, but prominent campaigners such as Guy Shrubsole are calling for community or public ownership of our uplands. Guy’s book The Lie of the Land describes how we’ve been conned for centuries by aristocratic landowners who describe themselves as stewards caring for our countryside for the benefit of us all. The grouse moors are a glaring example of how these people have not only prioritised bloodsports but have changed the whole ecology of the uplands to benefit themselves to the detriment of local and wider communities. We deserve better, especially as we’re paying for this land over and over through taxpayer subsidies and grants.
From around 1790 to 1830, hundreds of Acts of Parliament enclosed common land with community rights, so it became the property of a few individuals with the Lord of the Manor taking most land. At that time MPs were mainly aristocratic land owners and they shared out the commons between themselves. In the Peak District the aristocrats who benefited from this scam were familiar names: the Duke of Rutland, Duke of Norfolk and Earl Fitzwilliam. Two hundred years on the Fitzwilliams still own Bradfield moors.
The aristocrats soon worked out how to produce lots of grouse on their newly enclosed land: burning and drainage to provide ideal conditions for heather and predator control – the killing of any creature harmful to grouse.
However, Pennine uplands are important and rare conservation sites because of the peat soils found in these areas. Peatlands can capture and store carbon if they’re in healthy condition – very wet with varied vegetation including lots of moss. But dry heather-dominated moors emit carbon adding to the global climate emergency. Natural England is the government body in charge of conservation and their 2024 survey of Barden Moor in the Yorkshire Dales showed that this grouse moor, owned by the Duke of Devonshire since 1748, is almost entirely in Unfavourable Declining condition with damning comments on the effects of grouse management. If Natural England were honest, they would make a similar assessment for almost every other grouse moor.
An example of the taxpayers’ money propping up these estates is found at Broomhead in the Peak District where around £2 million has been paid over a ten-year environmental stewardship scheme mainly for conservation. A Freedom of Information request revealed an additional £530,922 was paid for restoration work in 2016/17 trying to put these moors back into a healthy boggy condition. But a recent assessment concluded these moors remain Unfavourable. We need to multiply these figures for every grouse moor in the Pennines to understand just how much we’re paying.
Natural Flood Management aims to reduce and slow water flows by partially blocking streams, planting vegetation and building settling ponds. But what we see on grouse moors is the opposite – areas stripped of vegetation through burning. Water pours into the villages and towns downstream, and it costs millions to repair flood damage. Moors in Favourable condition soak up carbon and flood water but we’re never going to get that when the priority is breeding grouse.
Community right-to-buy is a start – but we need more. If land is managed to the detriment of local communities, we need the government to step in with compulsory purchase and management that benefits us all.
Let’s make sure our uplands work for us, providing open space and a natural balance of plants, animals and birds.
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