"It'll be nice for residents to have birdsong," was the ignorant off-the-cuff comment overheard by RSPB staff who'd been in the public gallery attending a Medway Council planning meeting.
Local residents, campaigners and developers had attended to hear councillors debate an application to build 5,000 new homes at Lodge Hill in North Kent on a former Ministry of Defence site.
Everyone knows homes are desperately needed; for both people and nature. But this planning application is about more than meeting a local housing need driven by Government targets requiring local authorities to embark on a long-overdue building crusade. This application not only condemns a locally important breeding colony of nightingales to extinction, it also throws down a gauntlet that, if left unchecked, would allow builders to trash protected nature sites nationally. I for one am wholly opposed to both outcomes. They're avoidable and unnecessary.
That overheard comment was based on suggestions some of the resident nightingales would somehow survive the transformation from woodland and nationally protected land into a housing estate. We submitted evidence warning that the loss of the habitat would lead to the loss of these red-listed birds. We contacted councillors and their officers. We aired our concerns in the local media. We also warned that ignoring the sites' protected status as a Site of Special Scientific Interest [SSSI] would fly in the face of UK Government legislation. Medway Council has chosen to challenge UK law and ignore their moral responsibility to the future of declining nightingales.
We are challenging their decision and have launched an e-petition urging Eric Pickles, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to "call-in" this application and allow the rigorous process of a public inquiry to rule on the matter. If the development goes ahead, it will be one of the largest losses of SSSI land in the country since the mid-1990's.
Lodge Hill sits on north Kent's Hoo Peninsula. It's a little gem of a spot, not far from London, treasured for its wildlife. It's an area requiring more housing and employment. In short, it needs a detailed review of its needs and a clinical assessment of its full wealth of resources to ensure future development enhances the area for people, nature and its economy. The current plan of action falls far short of what the Hoo Peninsula needs and deserves.
This is a matter of national importance for the future of the UK's struggling wildlife, especially the immediately threatened nightingales. We'd like to demonstrate to Eric Pickles just how strong public opinion is for nature. So please do sign our e-petition and join us and the local MP, Mark Reckless, in backing the Government’s own guidance on developing protected sites. Save Lodge Hill from this unsuitable, unsustainable, unprecedented, unscientific and over-optimistic development.