Leaden progress

It looks as though we are moving, oh so slowly, towards the removal of lead ammunition from most of UK shooting.

The Health and Safety Executive published their proposals to restrict the sale and use of lead ammunition at the end of last week – click here. At first look these seem pretty good, and better than previous proposals. It’s not quite an all-out ban on lead ammunition, but it is very close to that.

These recommendations are based on environmental and public health issues surrounding lead ammunition use. It is shocking that most of the shooting industry seems to have fought against these changes for decades. They should be ashamed.

Many Wild Justice supporters struggled through an incredibly badly-worded consultation paper – click here – at around this time last year. We believe that probably a few thousand of you responded to this consultation. Since there were 11,000 responses then it means that Wild Justice newsletter subscribers formed an important bunch of responders. Many shooters, naturally, will have responded (and we suspect with a very wide variety of views) but other wildlife organisations did not encourage and empower their members to respond like we encouraged and empowered you. So thank you for your time. We can’t say for certain that you made a difference, but the decisions appear to have gone in the direction we suggested so we believe that you did make a difference.

Some of us have been working on this issue for many years and it shouldn’t be this slow – really it shouldn’t. This is an easy change to make and yet Conservative governments have kicked this can down the road until it is well and truly battered. The end is probably in sight.