Chris Packham’s Wild Justice group has withdrawn its latest legal action against the Government over the general licences saying it has ‘run out of time’.
Wild Justice closed down the general licences in the spring with a single legal letter. It had hoped to do the same to the rules over control of corvids to protect pheasants and partridges. However, according to a statement on its website, ‘Wild Justice does not have time to mount a sensible challenge of the legality of the general licences this time around’.
Although it says it has no time to continue the case this year, Wild Justice threatens to restart its action next year. It says: ‘Anyone wanting to rely on general licences in 2020 please take notice that Wild Justice will take legal action if Defra/NE do not heed our legal case.’
Wild Justice followed up its announcement with news of another spat between it and Theresa Villiers’ DEFRA. In a post entitled Natural England conduct – unacceptable, it outlined how it believed the DEFRA Natural England department failed to acknowledge or admit inaccuracies in its evidence to the EFRA committee, which held Natural England to account over its handling of the general licences crisis. Here is its response to Natural England’s legal letter:
