Dear Editor,

OUR request to allow horse riding in Harlow Woods has been well documented by Your Harlow and for those who are new to this, the headline is that to allow access to Harlow Woods Natural England are required to approve amendments to the Woodland Management Plan.

Following a site visit in June to inspect horse riding damage (at the request of council officers) Natural England have confirmed to us in writing that there is only a minor concern over poaching, which is the widening over paths as users avoid uneven ground caused by external factors such as bikes, buggies and horses.

You can therefore imagine our frustration on that our DSAR (Direct Subject Access Request) response shows repeated claims from council officers to councillors that the cost to accommodate horse riding is unachievable yet when pushed at Cabinet on the 7^th September Cllr Purse had to confirm that no meeting with Natural England has actually taken place to ascertain costs.

Both Councillor Swords and Councillor Purse have gone on the record to say that we would be invited to the meeting with Natural England to explore whether riding could be allowed – Cllr Swords in his email to us on 17^th July and Cllr Purse in my question to her at cabinet on 13^th July and 7^th September.

It’s a shame the yourharlow.com video from 7^th September cuts just short of the nod from Cllr Purse that gives her confirmation that we are invited, but it’s interesting to note that at the 2.02 minute mark on the video (just as Cllr Purse is being pushed for an answer) Cllr Swords can be seen to shake his head and mouth something in the direction of Cllr Purse. I’ll leave it to your readers to draw their own conclusions about what he may have said… Did he know something we didn’t, as fast forward one week and we have now been excluded from the meeting by Simon Freeman, deputy CEO for Harlow Council who has emailed to say only council officers and Natural England will be invited.

 So, having waited for two months for the promised meeting, what we are left with is a meeting where:

•  it was agreed on multiple occasions, in public and documented in writing that we were invited to but have now been excluded from.
• the balance of opinion in the room will be with council officers who have a documented disinterest in discussing or allowing the activity to be considered and have actively sought to reject the request.
• the key stakeholders petitioning for change are excluded from the process and have no opportunity to make their own suggestions for how the council and the horse-riding community could work collaboratively to allow hacking whilst protecting the SSSI

Had we been invited to the meeting we may have directed the council to the page 57, section 8.23 of the scientific paper that they have used as their data source for rejecting the request, which proposes that you could  “….lay dead branches horizontally to the soil, which accelerates soil stabilisation by reducing erosion…” as one of many possible cost effective measures that could be undertaken to support approving the activity.

We may have also pointed out to the officers in question who had previously stated in an email “…there has been no analysis which would likely satisfy Ed Wilson who will probably want a scientific breakdown…” that I feel it is wholly reasonable to expect scientific evidence when discussing a site of scientific interest and when they have been more than happy to quote scientific evidence to us when it supports their view.

We could have even offered to help fund any costs that may be incurred – The simple fact is that not one council officer or elected official has actually sought to ask.

Its difficult to believe that this meeting is anything other than an opportunity to be ‘seen to be doing the right thing’ rather than actually doing the right thing because council officers and elected officials seem unable to act transparently and with integrity. They could change that view with one invite – sadly for us, the ball is firmly in their court, and I sense that the reason for excluding us is because the meeting might actually confirm that this can be done… and at an achievable cost.

Yours sincerely

Edmund Wilson