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02
Jul
MPs debate grouse shooting ban – but it would be 'crippling', says estate manager
An issue with potentially wide-ranging implications for Nidderdale and Lower Wensleydale was debated in the House of Commons on Monday.
The debate about banning driven grouse shooting was triggered after a petition launched by campaign group Wild Justice, which is fronted by celebrity naturalist Chris Packham, attracted more than 104,000 signatures.
The issue has particular resonance in Nidderdale National Landscape (formerly the Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty) because many people in the field sports industry regard its grouse moors as some of the best in the UK, and grouse shoots bring hundreds of thousands of pounds into the local rural economy.
The UK has around 70% of the world’s heather moorland, which is the ideal habitat for red grouse, a bird found only in the UK and Ireland.
The Nidderdale National Landscape has a lot of moorland under management for grouse.
In its petition, Wild Justice said it believes “driven grouse shooting is bad for people, the environment and wildlife.”.
It described the pastime as “economically insignificant when contrasted with other real and potential uses of the UK’s extensive uplands”.
But Jack Depledge disagrees. He is rural estate manager at the 20,000-acre Swinton Estate, which is just west of Masham and lies within the Nidderdale National Landscape area. He told the Stray Ferret that any ban would has a serious impact on the local economy:
Shooting at Swinton directly employs eight people, but there are many others who depend on it, such as the contractors, consultants, the hospitality businesses that rely on the guns that come and stay, and the 40 or 50 people per shoot per day, who work in beating, picking up or flanking.
If grouse shooting ceases, all that is gone. The effects would be quite crippling in a rural area like ours, and even more so in more remote areas.
Jack Depledge, rural estate manager at the Swinton Estate near Masham.
The petition said that muirburn – the practice of burning heather to get rid of old, dry wood and encourage new growth – contributes to “climate breakdown”, and draining moors, which is a common feature of grouse moor management, leads to flooding and erosion.
Knaresborough town councillor Shan Oakes is a long-standing member of the Green Party, which would ban all hunting in its first term of office, were it to form a government. She said that management for grouse made moorland unsuitable for anything else.
She said:
Perhaps Swinton does things differently and manages the land really well – I don’t know – but in general, it’s the management of the land that's the issue.
Managing the land for heather and grouse is why we see moorland bereft of trees, and the way it's drained, rather than being allowed to hold water, makes flooding downstream far more likely.
Cllr Shan Oakes.
But Mr Depledge said that burning and other forms of moorland management were necessary. He said:
If the moorland wasn’t managed, the risk of wildfires would skyrocket. Without controlled burning and cutting, the fuel load across the area would build, and a wildfire would decimate thousands of acres – as has been proven across the country in 2025 with the prolonged dry weather.
At Swinton, a ban would have a serious impact, because grouse shooting is what drives the environmental work we are able to do in these areas. What you would see is 9,000 acres of moorland that wouldn’t have the private finance to pay for its preservation and maintenance.
Part of the East Nidderdale Moors Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) falls within the Swinton estate, and all the work we do there benefits species the SSSI is designated for, such as the hen harrier, merlin, and curlew that thrive on managed grouse moors due to ongoing monitoring efforts of gamekeepers, habitat management and predator control.
That work would suddenly be unfunded, and any public finance available would pale in comparison.
Wildfires can spread more quickly where moorland has not been managed.
He said that although he was often surprised by the diversity of people turning up on shoot days – it wasn’t just a sport for the rich – he nevertheless thought there was a lack of public understanding about grouse shooting.
He said:
I don’t think people understand it well at all. I always think of four factions in the Grouse Shooting debate. There’s a large proportion who probably don’t know much about it and don’t have a view.
Then there’s a section of society that’s against it – they don’t understand it, but they don’t like it for personal or social reasons.
There are also people who do understand it, but don’t like it – like Chris Packham and Wild Justice, for example.
And then there’s a very small section who understand it very well and who fight for it, because they know how important it is.
The red grouse is found only in the UK and Ireland. Photo: Paul Skirrow.
The Commons debate saw 10 MPs from four different parties speak broadly in favour of grouse shooting and just one, the Labour member for Sheffield Hallam, speak wholeheartedly against.
It was not followed by a vote as it was simply a sitting to consider Wild Justice’s e-petition, so no policy change will come of it.
The Labour government has no plans to ban driven grouse shooting and says that “well-managed grouse shooting can be an important part of a local rural economy”.
But Mr Depledge said that while he hoped a ban would never come into force, he thought the debate was unlikely to die off, and that Wild Justice would likely repeat its tactic of launching fresh petitions to keep the issue alive.
Ms Oakes added:
It’s a complicated issue and it needs looking at very closely.
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