Two weeks ago Cliffe Pools attracted 10,000 Dunlin to the shallows on Flamingo Pool, an advanced guard of some 300,000 waders that are escaping the frozen north and will be sustained through the winter by the Thames Estuary and well fed for the long migration north next spring.
These birds range across the estuary each day seeking the best feeding and shelter from the prevailing weather; the estuary serves these birds as one functioning habitat. Therefore, Cliffe Pools is just a small part of the wider landscape of international significance to these waders and wildfowl. The marshes start just east of Gravesend, at RSPB Shorne Marshes and sweep on through Higham, via Cliffe and out to the fringes of the Hoo Peninsula. Here the freshwater grazing marsh gives way to rare salt marshes in the Medway Estuary, the shingle banks, tidal muds and islands, and on eastwards the birds enter the Swale, the expanses of Elmley Marshes, the RSPB's new grazing marshes at Great Bells and our restoration project at Seasalter (just to the west of Whitstable). Mirroring this rich fuana and flora in Kent is a similar story along the north shore through Essex, with similar RSPB reserves and restoration projects.
It is for this reason the RSPB follows the government's proposals for a Lower Thames Crossing with great concern. Today the Secretary of State for Transport ruled out Option B of three proposed crossing sites following a public consultation. However, Option C, the most environmentally damaging, remains on the drawing board. Option C would connect the M2 in Kent with the A13 and the M25 in Essex. Option C would punch a hole right through important woodlands and wetlands that are designated Special Sites of Scientific Interest, Special Protection Areas (under EU legislation), and the government's very own Nature Improvement Area.
We are losing more farmland and woodland birds in this part of the country than any other, getting the balance right between development, communities and nature is becoming ever more difficult and has never been more critical. The RSPB believes that the government has a responsibility to choose the least environmentally damaging option.