Defra Upland Stakeholder Forum

I attended a meeting of the Defra Upland Stakeholder Forum (USF) in London, on 9 January.  This was the last meeting under the current Chairman, Robin Mortimer, who established this Forum; he is leaving Defra and it remains to be seen what direction the Forum will take under his successor.

In the 18 months since its formation, the main role of the USF has been to provide input into the Upland Delivery Review carried out by Natural England.  This has been a bureaucratic process but the end is in sight, and hopefully the USF has helped Natural England deliver some notable improvements to the way they operate with 'stakeholders'.

The proof of the pudding will be in the eating, and the Trust is running four 'stakeholder engagement events' in different part of the English Uplands to test the emerging ideas in practical settings.  I will provide an update separately as this work progresses.