Moorland Association gives Natural England five days on fire closures

The Moorland Association has given Natural England five working days to answer a list of demands over wildfire access restrictions, after the regulator confirmed it will not activate a closure on open access land until the Met Office Fire Severity Index reaches level 5. The exchange, published by the association on 3 August, escalates a dispute that began with members in Nidderdale and is now framed as a national one.

What did Natural England confirm?

Natural England’s chief executive, Marian Spain, replied to the association setting out three points of process. Landowners may contact the relevant authority and seek an outline fire prevention direction before the index reaches level 5, so the paperwork is ready. Urgent cases can be escalated through the regulator’s Open Access Contact Centre. And an outline direction can be approved verbally, with the written record following afterwards.

The sticking point is what happens next. Natural England maintains that a restriction can “only lawfully” be activated once the Fire Severity Index reaches level 5, whatever the state of the ground beneath it.

Why do moor owners say that is wrong?

The association’s argument is a reading of the statute. Section 25 of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 allows the relevant authority to exclude or restrict access where there is a particular risk of fire, and the association says the test refers both to exceptional weather conditions and to an exceptional change in the condition of the land.

That second limb matters after a summer like this one. Ground can be tinder dry, with a heavy fuel load left standing, on a day when the index has not yet crossed its threshold. Keepers who have spent July on the fireline in the Cairngorms and the Peak District have made the same point in blunter terms.

What is the association asking for?

Maps of the Nidderdale outline directions and an extract of the relevant authority guidance were promised to the association and never arrived. It has written again, copying Defra, asking for those documents and for four things beyond them: a national escalation protocol with a named operational lead, an urgent national audit of outline directions, a public register of them, and a Defra-led national review of the Fire Severity Index and the relevant authority arrangements that sit around it.

The association has given Natural England five working days to respond, after which it intends to publish the correspondence.

What happens next

The five working days run out in the middle of next week, which puts the deadline within days of the grouse season opening on 12 August and while fire risk across the uplands remains high. If Natural England does not answer, the association says the correspondence will be published in full.

The wider question, of whether the Fire Severity Index alone should decide when a moor can be closed, now sits with Defra. There is no published timetable for a review.