Tim Bonner: United Utilities cancels the countryside

United Utilities (UU) announced this week that it would not be renewing leases for shoots on its land which will close seven grouse moors and three low ground game shoots. It is important that as many people as possible let United Utilities know what an appalling decision this is. There is an interesting comparison between UU’s cancelling of game shooting and another story in the media this week. Coutts bank, owned by NatWest, decided that it did not like the politics of one of its customers, Nigel Farage, and cancelled his account, even going as far as briefing journalists with false information about its status.

UU’s decision to ban shooting on its land has apparently been a long time in the making, but the timing of the announcement seems designed to deflect from UU’s appalling environmental record as the worst polluting water company and its responsibility for 69,245 sewage overflows in 2022 alone. Meanwhile, last year UU paid over £300 million in dividends to shareholders and the outgoing Chief Executive made £3,178,000 in total compensation. 

As in the case of Nigel Farage, UU - or at least its PR advisors - have clearly decided that game shooting is a bad look for the company and that getting rid of it would serve the dual purpose of moving debate away from UU’s own failings and also promoting its credentials as modern and progressive. Like NatWest it has also used a completely false justification, claiming that the move is about improving water quality. Even if there was a viable case that grouse moor management affects water quality, which there is not, there is not even the slightest suggestion that the lowland shoots it is closing down have any impact on water at all.

UU’s land holdings largely originate from the vision of Victorian civic leaders who met the challenge of supplying water to their fast-growing metropolises by identifying watersheds that could be used as reservoirs, getting Acts of Parliament passed to purchase them and building great dams and tunnel systems to deliver fresh water to cities like Manchester and Liverpool.

Whilst that land, which was originally purchased for the benefit of the population as a whole, has now passed into the hands of private companies, UU - like the other water companies – was set up with government support, is licenced and regulated by the state, and has its borrowing underwritten by the taxpayer. It is therefore perfectly reasonable for people in the rural community to ask why, if, as the Prime Minister has said it is wrong for a bank to shut down the account of someone for exercising their right to lawful free speech, what Ministers think about a water company cancelling the ability of people to carry out a lawful rural activity.

UU’s current Chief Executive, Louise Beardmore, needs to think very carefully about the decision she has made. She may think that upsetting the rural community is of little concern, but taking sides in rural culture wars is no place for a public company delivering a fundamental service to the country as a whole.

Join us in standing up for the countryside, our environment and the thousands of people who depend on shooting, by telling United Utilities to reverse their ill-thought-through decision to not renew shooting leases on its land immediately. Sign our e-lobby now.

Grouse Shooting & Its Associated Integrated Management. July 2022

COUNTRYSIDE ALLIANCE BRIEFING NOTE

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