Giving nature a helping hand

Last week, the UK Government published its consultation on biodiversity offsetting - outlining how it plans to improve the way that new habitat is created when some is lost through development (as obliged under the National Planning Policy Framework).  You can see our initial response here. 

This week, the Environment Agency has completed a crucial stage in a habitat creation scheme at Medmerry in Sussex which will provide compensatory habitat for that lost through coastal squeeze.  This is a legal obligation under the EU Habitats and Species Directive.  Whilst the Government's consultation on offsetting focuses primarily on damage to non-statutory sites, Medmerry provides a beacon as to what might be achieved if offsetting is delivered well and for the right reasons. 

So while we still have anxieties about the Government's biodiversity offsetting consultation (on which I shall elaborate soon), I have been pleased that it reaffirms the so-called mitigation hierarchy (avoid damage, explore alternatives, mitigate impact where possible and as a last resort, compensate for loss).  I think that there is much to learn from current schemes about the best way to deliver compensatory habitat when damage occurs.  Getting this right will help us deliver genuinely sustainable development.

So, I want today, to put a spotlight on Medmerry.

The Environment Agency’s Medmerry Managed Realignment Scheme is between Selsey and Bracklesham south of Chichester.  It is the largest open coast realignment ever undertaken in Britain, covering an area of about 300 football pitches. Large clay banks have been built inland from the sea, providing 1000 times more flood protection for over 300 houses, the water treatment works and main road.

I visited the site last year and the scale is impressive, the engineering challenge enormous and the opportunity for wildlife is clearly great.

It is first and foremost a flood risk management scheme, but the beauty of it is that it helps create intertidal wildlife habitat to replace internationally important areas being lost through coastal squeeze in The Solent (making homes for waterbirds that come here for the winter from the Arctic), and it opens up new public access. I said at the start of the year (here) that I wanted to offer hope for conservation and I think this is a great example of a win-win-win scheme: good for people and good for wildlife.

The RSPB has been the EA's nature conservation partner throughout, right there at the heart of the scheme helping with everything from habitat design to community liaison.

The breach of the shingle beach is a huge and complex job, taking place over two weeks - on Sunday, some seawater came over the part-lowered bank for the first time; on Wednesday, a deep channel was cut linking the sea with the site, allowing all the new channels to fill.

Our Project Manager, Adrian Thomas was on site this week and here are his thoughts, "Wednesday was such an exciting day, as the Environment Agency quickly excavated a deep channel at low tide to open up the Medmerry managed realignment scheme to the sea.  As the tide rose, it flowed out into a landscape it had been artificially held back from for many years, instantly creating new intertidal wetlands as it went. Instead of the waves pounding the weak beach as they have done, threatening to breach in every storm, the seawater nudged inland, losing its power as it went, and didn't even reach the solid new floodbanks that have been built on higher land. It was a monumental moment, but also felt so sensible. Why fight the sea when good things can come out of it as they are here at Medmerry?"

The site remains a closed construction site for the time being so there is currently no public access.  The best way to see what is going on is via the Environment Agency’s website, where there is time lapse camera footage (see here or here - it's well worth having a look)

There is much more work to do to complete the breach and finish off all the paths, viewpoints, fencing etc. The site will open to the public in November, at which point we will take on the day to day management. The Environment Agency will maintain responsibility for flood risk management.  For those of you keen to see the place, the best place to start a visit will be from the RSPB Pagham Harbour visitor centre. It will be a 30 minute walk to get to Medmerry, and it is a big site that will be best explored by bike (a new year's resolution for me to do in the spring). But that in many ways is the beauty of it - such a wild place, a rare and precious refuge on such a busy, developed coast.  We are working with local communities to now try and develop walking and cycling links radiating out from Medmerry.

Over time, the expectation is that the Medmerry scheme will replace the extent and functional quality of habitat lost through coastal squeeze.  Our partnership with the EA helps to guarantee that wildlife will reap the benefits over the long term.  Utlimately these are two of the tests of any decent compensatory habitat scheme and are issues which need to be explored through the current government consultation on offsetting.

Have a look at the Medmerry scheme and tell me what you think.

It would be great to hear your views.