Hands Off Hartlebury Common

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Ian Liddell-Granger, Conservative MP for BridgwaterA Westcountry MP has just launched a withering attack on the conservation quango Natural England - labelling it an invention "Dr Frankenstein would be proud of".

Ian Liddell-Granger, Conservative MP for Bridgwater, has called for the body to be radically scaled back, arguing that it has been "let loose" on "many sensitive environmental issues".

He said: "Natural England cares more about weeds than the welfare of country folk. It believes that butterflies and bats come before people".

Mr Liddell-Granger, who was speaking in a Parliamentary debate he initiated, was critical of Natural England's handling of EU grants to farmers for maintaining landscapes.

He said farmers in Withypool on Exmoor were having to do "precisely what Natural England wants", despite maintaining common land for centuries.

He said: "Natural England wants more cattle to graze on the common, and has put on the frighteners. "It wants 48 cows to graze a bit of land that would barely support half that number. For generations, Withypool Common has been known as a sheep common and, in 1950, there were more than 2,000 sheep on the hill.

"There is nothing natural about Natural England. From the word go it was a cumbersome creature, cobbled together in haste.

"Dr Frankenstein would have been proud of it."

Hear. Hear.