I HAVE watched a recording of the debate at this year’s National Trust agm in October about whether to allow trail hunting on the trust’s land.

About 62,000 members voted and the outcome was to allow trail hunting, but the trust had earlier put in place conditions to make sure no fox, deer or hare would be killed, accidentally or not.

The main conditions state that only an artificial scent may be used, that hounds have to be retrained to that scent, that the trail must be made known to the trust so that members of the public can avoid those areas, that no terrier men should be present as they would be no need to dig out foxes, that written permission along with a licence issued by the trust should be made available to the authorities on request.

But, surprise, surprise, the trust says it hasn’t the resources to pay anyone to monitor the hunts, of which there around 60-plus.

It was suggested at the agm that licences could be raised to between £1,000 to £2,000 per hunt to pay for the monitoring.

Already during November, there was filmed evidence of hunting in Cumbria, Somerset, Oxfordshire and elsewhere but no licences have yet been issued.

Things have to change. The National Trust is, after all, a conservation organisation.

Marjorie Embling, Crook