Gary and Skadi

My name is Gary and I walk on the moor once or twice most days with our dog, Skadi. I run a busy education business which means I drive and work with schools over much of Northern England and sometimes much further afield.

I’m also well known for my landscape photography and promoting low impact outdoor pursuits but Crompton Moor is still one of my favourite retreats from the day to day hustle and bustle of modern life.

I get to see a lot of what goes on up at the moor and have often been the first to call in the fire brigade or police when trouble occurs.

I do my bit tidying up the place as well, clearing up the rubbish, mending fences or walls and just generally keeping an eye on the place.

Non of this is in any official capacity, it’s just done because I care about the place and I see precious little being done by our council.

Skadi is an old rescue dog and her eyesight is getting a little poor these days, she still loves to come to the moor though and it is one of the only places I can safely let her run free, as she has no real road sense. She is still an active dog and needs the regular exercise that running about on the moor gives her, it doesn’t do me much harm either.

There are other parks where I can take her but increasingly the rule is becoming “Keep your dog on a lead”, that’s just no good for an active dog like Skadi. Crompton Moor is the only easily accessible local space that still has a touch of wildness to it, and that is what I love about the place.

Now our council says they want to turn the place into a leisure park for mountain bikers and I can’t help wonder why the local dog walkers, who are here every day, rain or shine, are being pushed aside for the once or twice a month riders that do nothing to care for the place.

I’ve been barged aside before by an out of control cyclist on the main foot path and Skadi was narrowly missed once too. I could dust myself off but it would probably kill Skadi to be hit at the speed they were going.

I’m not saying that access to the Crompton Moor should not be inclusive but I do think there needs to be much more consideration for the regular users of the moor.

It’s all very well for landscape architects and councillors to propose grand plans for lottery funding and visitor centres but the reality is usually some ill conceived plan that nobody really wants and never gets properly finished anyway. The councillors and architects get their faces in the paper and we get left to pick up the broken pieces.






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