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Controversial plans to set up a management trust for Ilkley Moor have been ditched in the wake of last week's devastating blaze.
Landowner Bradford Council said it would no longer be pursuing the scheme following the fire which destroyed around 500 acres of heather land.
The Council has opted to keep and care for the moor and is looking at raising the thousands of pounds needed for restoration.
Bradford Council environment chief Councillor Anne Hawkesworth said they would be working quickly to get regeneration funding in place.
"The trust will not now be going ahead," she confirmed. "A likely scenario is that we arrange the sale of disused property on the moor and the money from that will be ring-fenced."
She said the Council would then apply for a similar amount of lottery funding, alongside Government-funded stewardship schemes.
She also revealed plans for a friends of Ilkley Moor' style group to attract additional funding for repairing and managing the moor. The group would not have decision-making responsibilities. She added: "The trust had been the catalyst for setting something up along these lines, but the fire has certainly moved things along.
"Ilkley Moor is iconic the world over. I know there have been fires on other moors, but we really have to let people know that we are doing all we can to bring this moor back to how it was."
The Prince of Wales is expected to be invited to visit the moor to boost fundraising for the officially-recognised Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). Councillor Hawkesworth said the Council had felt frustrated at being unable to automatically close the moor as temperatures soared in the days leading up to last Wednesday's outbreak. "Other moor custodians had done so, but because Ilkley Moor is common land we could not go ahead and just do that," she said.
source: http://www.thisisbradford.co.uk/news/tibnews/display.var.865564.0.moor_trust_plan_axed_after_blaze.php
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