What's happening at Lodge Hill?

What’s happening at Lodge Hill?

Last year, nightingales were added to the UK red list of endangered birds for the first time; after the last census revealed there are now fewer than 6,000 singing males in our country, a shocking 90% decline over the past 50 years. Kent has become one of the nightingales’ last remaining strongholds, and in 2013 a site called Lodge Hill and Chattenden Woods became the UK's only site protected specifically for nightingales. Lodge Hill is special because it holds such a large population of our now scarce nightingales.

But this unique and valuable site has long been earmarked by Medway Council for development of up to 5,000 houses, which would completely destroy it. In 2014, a developer submitted an application to build those 5,000 houses. If this development goes ahead, it would undermine the Government’s own tests to prevent damaging development on every other nationally protected area in England (places designated as ‘Sites of Special Scientific Interest, or SSSIs) and set a dangerous precedent for harmful activities on our SSSIs in the future.

After several years of opposition from local people and conservation organisations, from September 2014 to early 2015 you helped send more than 12,400 personal letters to the Government asking for a ‘call in’ of Medway Council’s decision to approve the development at Lodge Hill, because of its national importance. And last February, we celebrated the news that the Government would do just that, and that the Secretary of State for housing would decide Lodge Hill’s future after a public inquiry.

But then things went very quiet…

So what’s happened in the last year?

Changes to the developer’s team, requests for updated information and other delays mean that despite us working hard, this inquiry will not take place until 2017! The good news is that we’ve confirmed the RSPB will be one of the parties allowed to present our evidence at the public inquiry. Lodge Hill isn’t only important for nightingales, and throughout our campaigning, we’ve worked alongside other conservation organisations. We’ll therefore be standing alongside Kent Wildlife Trust and Medway Countryside Forum in the inquiry to give all the wildlife that Lodge Hill protects a voice in the proceedings.

The eagle-eyed amongst you may have seen that Rampisham Down in Dorset, another site that could set the same precedent for damage to our nationally protected areas, was called in not long after Lodge Hill. We’re expecting that public inquiry to start much sooner that the Lodge Hill one, in the Autumn this year, and it will examine many of the same issues.

Meanwhile, Lodge Hill’s nightingales have nested, reared their chicks, migrated to Africa for the winter and are returning to Kent once more, where the future of their home still hangs in the balance of the developer and the Council’s ambitions. As the nightingales prepare to return to Africa once more this Autumn, we expect Medway Council to launch a further consultation on their Local Plan for housing. Their last Local Plan was rejected by the Government’s Inspector because they included Lodge Hill, a protected site, as one of the key developments. We fully, but sadly, expect it to be central to this forthcoming draft Local Plan as well.

We’ll need your help in the months ahead to keep fighting for both Lodge Hill’s nightingales and the principles of protection from development from special sites like this.

Enjoy their singing throughout the spring

But for now, our nightingales are returning to mate and nest, and the males are singing their hearts out. By early June they’ll have gone silent, disappearing elusively into the scrubland to rear their chicks. Whilst it lasts, head to Northward Hill, Cliffe Pools and Blean Woods (all in Kent), Minsmere in Suffolk, Highnam Woods in Gloucestershire, Garston Wood in Dorset or Pulborough Brooks in West Sussex or one of these Wildlife Trusts reserves.

Never heard a nightingale sing? Our bird guide includes a recording so you know what to listen out for.

You can ready the full story of our fight to save Lodge Hill over on our Lodge Hill casework page. To keep up to date with all our campaigning, why not sign up as a Campaign Champion?