With the opening today of the public inquiry over the proposed development adjacent Talbot Heath in Poole, the RSPB’s Tony Whitehead considers the issues at stake and why the RSPB and Natural England are working together to fight the case against development …
Talbot Heath is an important site. It is included under the global Ramsar convention, is designated a Special Protection Area under the EU Birds directive and a Special Area of Conservation. It is also part of the Bourne Valley Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), which is protected under UK law. These designations represent the site’s international importance for wildlife, and are the highest level of legal wildlife protection available in Britain.
The Talbot Village Trust wants to develop a site for 378 houses and other uses immediately adjacent to Talbot Heath. Despite vigorous opposition. Poole Borough Council resolved to grant planning consent for the proposal in June 2010.
For the past 40 years we and other conservationists have worked hard to help people understand that these heaths are rare and precious habitats that deserve protection.
So how could a decision be made to build a huge housing development next to the heath? There are well-known major risks attached to building next to these places, and you need to be sure that the pressure from people, their pets, from fire risk and a myriad of other things won’t have a huge impact on the creatures that live there.
The "appropriate assessment" carried out by the council's consultants, a legal requirement when internationally important protected sites are threatened, begged to differ. In a highly surprising conclusion and despite well-documented evidence to the contrary, it found that with a range of mitigation measures, such as pet proof fences, the development would be okay.
The trouble is, these measures are not reliable and we don't think they are up to the job. Poole Borough should know this too. In April 2010 Poole Borough Council signed up to the Dorset Heathlands Interim Planning Framework. This document, co-signed by a number of other Dorset councils, provides guidance on how damage to heaths might be reduced.
This is an important agreement and we believed would secure a safe future for places like Talbot Heath. Signed by all the local authorities, it clearly states that for development within 400m of a heath, like that proposed by the Trust:
... it will not be possible for a local planning authority undertaking an appropriate assessment of a proposal for residential development to be certain that any adverse effects could be avoided or alleviated.
Now compare this with the actual wording of the appropriate assessment (available on the Council’s website) that paved the way for the approval of the planning application:
Taking into account the proposed mitigation and proposed changes to the scheme it is concluded that the plan will not adversely affect the integrity of the European designations.
The planning authority’s own guidance states that it is not possible for an appropriate assessment of a planning application to state with any certainty that a development within 400m of a heath would not affect the sites integrity.
This is why the decision to approve the scheme came as a shock. We really thought that Poole Borough understood the implications of developing land next to heathlands.
Because of this poor decision we welcome the decision to hold a public inquiry to examine this decision in detail.
At the inquiry RSPB and Natural England will give joint evidence over the importance of Talbot Heath for wildlife and the risks associated with the Trust’s proposal. We will show that the mitigation measures offered by the Trust would not stop harm to the heathlands and could actually increase damage on the site.
We’ll let you know more as the inquiry proceeds.
For more information visit the RSPBs Talbot Heath web pages