How much can it possibly cost ?

"Once again here is your action news reporter bringing you all the news that is the news across the region ..." with apologies to Ray Stevens, but this local news report has got me puzzled today.

Its about Ilkley Moor (see above piccie).
Its about the one image that is as close to a Yorkshiremans heart as Taylors Yorkshire Tea, you can't find anything more representative of Yorkshire as the photograph above of the cow and calf rocks high on the moor above Ilkley - my brother had his wedding day photos taken at the cow and calf rocks - they left the reception in their bride and groom attire with hiking boots hidden underneath, and stood and posed on top of the moor to the general amusement of all the hikers and climbers.

Ilkley Moor is a Yorkshire intitution.
And during this long hot summer it burned.
So now huge swathes of it are cinders instead of being heather covered moorland.
Which is a shame as a lot of the heather only flowers in the autumn and at this time of year all of the moorland around here is clad in a fantastic display of low-growing but highly colourful flowering heathers and gorse.

But nauture being nature we know that next year the heather will return, it just will, its what nature does, and there are some land managers who would argue that a good fire every three years or so is necessary to encourage a vigorous growth of moorland flora.

So exactly what bit of the miracle that is nature recovering from a disaster do Bradford Council (who manage Ilkley moor) feel that they have to fund ?

In a meeting of the council to discuss the scorched state of the moor they voted to continue their management of the priceless assett rather than handing it over to a national institution like The National Trust for instance, but also voted to sell off a building on the moor in order to "finance the recovery that it needs following the fire" and also "attract further funding".

So what bit of "lets wait until next spring for the new growth to start" will need money to make it happen ?

What did moorland do in the days before public management meant that it needed money to make its plants grow ?

Or are they thinking of a sequence of pansy and lobelia flower clocks sponsored by local garden centres all over the famous landmark ? Maybe even a nice water feature to be designed by that nice Charlie "Baps" Dimmock ?