Fallen stock collection around Sowerby Bridge is upland work, and it needs a collector who is set up for it. The farms above the Calder and Ryburn valleys run sheep on steep in-bye land and open moor, the access lanes are narrow and often gated, and losses cluster hard around lambing and bad weather rather than spreading evenly through the year. Martlands provides fallen stock and ABP collection across the North West and into West Yorkshire from our DEFRA approved facility in Burscough, and the Calderdale valleys are a regular part of our trans-Pennine rounds.
Upland Collection Is a Different Job and We Plan It That Way
A collection from a lowland dairy unit and a collection from a hillside above Sowerby Bridge are not the same task. On the hill farms the animal is often some distance from hardstanding, the approach may be a single-track lane shared with walkers heading for the moors, and the weather that caused the loss can be the same weather making access difficult. Our crews plan these collections with the farmer rather than simply turning up – agreeing where the animal can be brought to or how close the vehicle can safely get – which is the practical knowledge that separates an upland service from a lowland one working out of its comfort zone. Our article on how fallen stock collection services support upland and remote farms goes into this side of the work in more detail.
Lambing Season Shapes the Calderdale Workload
The flocks on the tops around Sowerby Bridge mean spring is the pressure point, when losses can come in runs rather than one at a time. Because the legal duty of care requires fallen stock to be collected promptly, and because a carcass left on open ground draws scavengers and creates a disease risk to the rest of the flock, we schedule the Pennine rounds more intensively through lambing so that hill keepers are not left waiting behind lowland work. The ban on on-farm burial and burning has applied since 2003, and it applies on the moor edge just as it does in the valley bottom, so a licensed collection is the only lawful route however remote the field.
The Paperwork Matters as Much on the Hill as Anywhere
Every collection we carry out around Sowerby Bridge comes with a Commercial Document and a Waste Transfer Note, which together give the keeper the audit trail that DEFRA inspections and Red Tractor assessments expect to see. As National Fallen Stock Company members with collections managed through the KoLeCt system, the record is complete from booking to disposal at our licensed processing facility, and for any fallen cattle over 48 months we carry out the required BSE sampling as a DEFRA approved sampling centre.
Covering Calderdale From Valley to Moor
Sowerby Bridge sits at the heart of our Calderdale coverage, and the same crews serve the neighbouring towns along the valley – see our dedicated pages for Halifax fallen stock collection and Hebden Bridge fallen stock collection, or the county-wide picture on our West Yorkshire fallen stock collection page. The A58 over the tops connects the patch directly to our North West base, so trans-Pennine response times are shorter than many Yorkshire keepers expect.
Arranging a Collection Around Sowerby Bridge
If you farm around Sowerby Bridge and have fallen stock to move, call Martlands on 01704 776977. Tell us about the access when you ring – the more we know about the lane, the gates and where the animal lies, the smoother the collection will be – and we will handle the removal, any required sampling and every piece of the compliance paperwork.
