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If burning on an SSSI when consent is not in place, land managers need to apply to Natural England first, a process that can take up to four months before Defra will commence the licensing process. This means that about half the statutory burning season is lost, with practical experience showing that the spring prescribed burning season is more likely to be compromised by inappropriate conditions. Defra did not see the need for interim measures, given that the new process should make applications more straightforward, thereby taking far less than 12 weeks, and given the availability of other options for managing vegetation, such as cutting. However, cutting is an operation requiring consent on an SSSI and is difficult to conduct in rocky, sloping and remote areas, so it may not be an easy alternative.