Here we are, into the final five days of Medway Council's consultation into their Development Options for the next two decades. As Adrian Thomas, our #SaveLodgeHill campaign manager writes, we are tantalisingly close to 12,000 responses.
There’s still time to ask them NOT to allocate Lodge Hill SSSI, the nation's best site for nightingales, for development. It would not only be disastrous for the nightingales, already under such threat in the UK and now on the Red List of species of conservation concern, but it would set such a damaging precedent for protected places everywhere.
A massive thank you to all of you who have already taken part.
And if you have yet to respond, please do so now here and get us over that 12,000 mark. After 5pm on Tuesday 18th, your voice will not be heard*. (If you haven't seen the little video of Lodge Hill, it will give you a taste of what the site is like.)
Together, we are sending a loud and clear message to Medway Council that this should just not happen.
Last week, we heard that the first nightingale of the spring returned to Lodge Hill. Over the next month, we expect that many more will return there. We would love to hear about your own nightingale sightings; please share your nightingale news, pictures, and video with us on social media, using #savelodgehill.
Sadly, there isn't public access to Lodge Hill to hear them. So, instead, to help as many of people as possible get to hear nightingales, we have worked with a range of wonderful organisations to pull together the first National Nightingale Festival. There are over 100 events for you to choose from, spread across south and east England, in the few special places where they remain.
Do get along to one of the events and just marvel at the sound of a bird that has inspired so many people over the centuries. It's nature's little reminder of why it is all worth fighting for.
(*We have heard rumours that Medway Council might extend the consultation - again! - because they haven't released a key document. However, at the time of writing we have received no formal notification of this, and Medway Council's website still says the consultation ends on Tuesday 18 April. So we must assume that is true!)