Many thanks to everyone who has taken the time to email north-west water company United Utilities (UU) in support of its decision not to renew grouse and pheasant/partridge shooting leases on its land after the current leases expire in 2027 (see here, here and here).
In the face of a subsequent online attack from shooting organisations who are furious about this decision, UU has responded with a full statement to explain why the decision was made. This is the email that UU has been sending to those who are attacking the company:
Hello,
Thank you for contacting us to raise your concerns about the United Utilities’ updated land strategy. Building on decades of successful habitat restoration, we recently reviewed the way we manage our land to ensure we are fully focused on using our catchments to manage water quality, quantity and mitigate flooding, which are of strategic importance to us as we respond to the challenges of climate change.
Addressing these challenges requires a step change in our approach to help ensure a fully resilient ecosystem in which wet moorlands and biodiverse woodlands can improve catchment resilience by slowing the flow of water and improving water quality and retention – this is the primary reason we own this catchment land.
Following that review and to ensure we can focus on those areas, we will not be renewing shooting leases where we own the rights. This follows a decision made some time ago not to issue any such leases on a long-term basis. Stepping away from leasing our shooting rights, as those leases come to their natural expiry date over the next few years, provides an opportunity to work with stakeholders to change the land management approach and support the delivery of this long-term objective for increased catchment resilience.
We remain committed to working with others, to accelerate the restoration and rewetting of our peatlands and the biodiversity of our woodlands. We believe this will help unlock other opportunities to deliver a richer and more diverse approach to habitat management, conserving and improving biodiversity, including protected species, while also developing skills and jobs. We see this as an extension of our catchment management work which has been so successful in other parts of our region.
Our updated land strategy affects 24 licences where we have shooting rights within specific catchments. We are working through this transition with those who are affected by this change as the leases come to their natural end and we remain committed to working with others to help address climate change risks such as wildfires and droughts whilst improving biodiversity. Many current land management techniques will continue and these will form part of new plans, developed and delivered with stakeholders and partners, providing new jobs and economic benefits for those who work in our catchment communities.
© United Utilities Group PLC 2023
Raptor Persecution UK 
The termination of those shooting licences won’t come a moment too soon.
Good to see that UU is sticking by its decision.
An excellent account which goes well beyond UU’s considerable catchment holdings to starkly explain the big issues around the way we manage our uplands. We already know from initiatives like Wild Ennerdale (in which UU is a partner) how dramatic doing things differently can be – in the case of Ennerdale freeing the river Liza to re-establish a more natural course has had a spectacular effect on flooding in one of the most flood hit areas in the UK (the recurring flooding of Carlisle).
I’m not sure that the river Liza has ever been restrained or that it will make any reduction in flooding for the future. The catchment has not seen the major inundation which the Rivers Derwent and Eden have suffered.
Well I for one am not surprised by their decision to stand firm no company is going to be brow beaten by the furious reaction of the shooting fraternity they have if anything shot themselves in the foot once again. Derbyshire county council amaze me they are spending millions of pounds on flood protection for Matlock but do not seem to realise how much water is runoff from the surrounding moors a road is closed near Beely moor…. it’s collapsed water is running down it about an inch deep what’s going on below the tarmac no one knows but if the noise is anything to go by there is a lot more water below than above the tarmac have they looked into re-wetting this and other moors I doubt it but if they did it could change things permanently. It would no doubt be cheaper too.
I live in the Matlock area. Couldn’t agree more with your comments.
@saveourwolds1 on Twitter is trying to stop further development which will increase the flood water risk.
Apologies if you already know this.
What a hollow and meaningless statement. What exactly are they intending to do different to their current tenants, once they have the land back in hand? For the ignorant amongst the readership, there is already no muirburn on UU land, only heather cutting. Given their track record of spending the bare minimum, or often even less, on critical infrastructure that is just as important part of their business as their water catchments, does anyone genuinely believe they will do any active management for the benefit of biodiversity or wildlife? An absolute greenwash. So no active management, build up of fuel load, followed by catastrophic wildfire, as has happened on land where they have no shooting tenants. How does that improve water quality, biodiversity or a “fully resilient ecosystem”. I’d hope the sensible amongst us can see this for the hollow gesture it is.
For the ignorant who has made this post: as you said, they already do heather cutting to mitigate against wildfires. To pretend that is not a valid mitigation action just underlines that you are posting from a position of bias, not fact.
The underlying problem is that the moors have been artificially drained by cutting drainage channels. Dryer land is favoured by Heather, and as it matures and gets older, gets to be a fire risk. Dry peat is a fire risk too. by rewetting the moors (blocking up the artificial drainage channels) giving the heather a last cut, and then planting moisture loving plants (Spagnum Mosses being the classic example). will hold rainfall for much longer, wash less peat into the water supplies (which are very expensive to clean out BTW) and encourage more a diverse ecosystem to thrive.
I have recently been involved in some survey work on the moors above Beely and they are covered in drainage ditches (and some grouse butts) there is a lot of peat up there so the opportunities to block the ditches and rewet the peat are very real. English Nature are potentially funding these activities. If the Landowner (who lives in Chatsworth House) thinks it’s the right thing to do.
Wonderful news.
The next compain will be to bring to justice the owners or directors who allow the blatant killing of raptors and moles on their land.
Long past time moles stopped being regarded ar “vermin”.
I love moles.They do a great job turning the soil and are
deserving of being treated with respect.They are certainly not vermin……the term more accurately describes the gun toting fraternity.
This is excellent news for the environment and wildlife.
That’s it there’s absolutely no way back for grouse shooting on UU land EVER!!!! It was fantastic to see how much emphasis UU put on flood prevention in their email, just about everything a grouse moor is contradicts proper management to prevent flooding from burning peat to making sure there are no trees (even one can provide a perch or nest site for ‘vermin’ and a block of them a shelter for other predators and an obstacle for drives). There’s absolutely no way grouse moors can be incorporated in meaningful flood prevention, no chance, never. Going back on this now would effectively mean UU deciding grouse shooting is more important than stopping streets being knee deep in water after all. That’s not going to happen and I’m sure BASC and the rest know this. Maybe some dispirited shoots will drop out before their licences terminate?
Quite a lot of flooding has occurred on the lower Tweed, Annan and Tay among other rivers, how much grouse shooting takes place in their upper watersheds? There’s certainly a lot of flooding in Yorkshire downstream of grouse moors too. If the public really knew how keeping their homes and businesses dry is compromised so somebody can stand in a butt and shoot birds for fun there would be hell to pay and any politicians that have previously stood up for their overpaid shotgun loving pals on the moors would suddenly become very, very shy indeed on the subject.
I really wish the conservation movement had done more to push this years ago, I suspect they didn’t to try and have cordial relations with the other side which was a big mistake. They should have been shouting about it from the roof tops. Finally there’s momentum building on the topic now and this is going to add to it. With the exception of culling the ridiculously bloated red deer population in the Highlands to reduce road deaths as well as damage to forestry, farming and conservation projects, rewilding grouse moors so families don’t have their front rooms turn into swimming pools is the lowest hanging fruit we could possibly have.
Very well done UU – following on in principle from Ilkley and Denton Moors. The latter case is particularly interesting as the loss of the DGS lease followed on from the successful prosecution of a gamekeeper for a snaring offence. Pheasant shooting is now also deemed incompatible with the estate’s re-wilding aims. This is a major step forward. The tide is turning!
This is a good statement from UU and an excellent strategy. It won’t come a moment too soon as we look to an increasingly drought-ridden future with global warming. We need to lock water into the landscapes so that soil can act as a sponge, reducing flooding and erosion, helping valuable habitats re-establish and maintain some continuity of ecosystems. Aridification, soil nutrient loss, flash floods caused by climate change, will all become more pronounced, and be exacerbated by the old regimes of land management, as demonstrated on moorland shooting estates. The clock is ticking for us to try and redress the balance before it is too late for our environment.