Success in campaign to protect Welsh general licences

Large-scale, damaging changes to general licences for Wales have been avoided. The licences have come under close political focus in the country after a challenge by Wild Justice.

The licences have been significantly more limited in scope in recent years, and further restrictions were proposed for those coming into force in 2023. However, shooting and countryside organisations have fended these changes off.

A spokesman for the National Gamekeepers’ Organisation (NGO) said the group “had sight of preview versions of the licences. In those, NRW [National Resources Wales] had proposed changes that we believed would make the licences unworkable. We suggested changes to these licences, and the NGO has therefore been instrumental in enabling operators to carry on with important conservation and crop protection work.”

However, Welsh gamekeepers and pest controllers were less than impressed. Pest shooter Rhys Allan said: “The situation may not have got worse, but we still don’t have some of the major tools we need to protect Wales’s wildlife effectively.”