Titchfield Haven National Nature Reserve under threat from proposed adjacent residential developments.

Titchfield Haven nestles in the mouth/estuary of the river Meon in Hampshire, with the surrounding land forming a natural buffer for the wildlife especially from the current residential areas of Stubbington & Hill Head. However builders have their eyes on this land, which is part of the "Meon Strategic Gap" and are proposing a development of 160 new homes on 2 fields immediately adjacent to Titchfield Haven National Nature Reserve. One of these fields until recently was set for agriculture and around 500 overwintering geese (Brent and Canada) could regularly be seen grazing the fields. However the last couple of years the field has resorted to long grass and ragwort and the large numbers of Geese have gone (very convenient for the wildlife surveys). The fields are also a rich resource of food for many other birds especially birds of prey including the Marsh Harrier (which bred for the first time for around 45 years this summer at the Haven) which can be seen gathering nesting materials and hunting. Even more of a concern is if these fields are lost to developers then all the land on the whole eastern side of the reserve becomes vulnerable to large scale development, resulting in noise, light pollution, run-off pollution, domestic animal predation etc within the reserve. THIS WILL BE PERMANENT AND IRREVERSIBLE DAMAGE TO THE RESERVE. For full details on the application please visit Fareham Borough Council website and search for planning application "P/17/1451/OA" or "Land West of Old Street" or follow this link to the application: http://www.fareham.gov.uk/casetrackerplanning/ApplicationDetails.aspx?reference=P/17/1451/OA&uprn=10012132214 Thank you for your time and help Richard

Hi Richard welcome to the community from Sheffield.

It will be a shame if this development goes ahead so I hope all the comments I've read (didn't see one that was for the plans) are successful in stopping it.

My Flickr photos

Hi, that would be horrible to lose or have the Reserve affected by more areas near titchfield Haven being built on. Although I am lucky where I live to see all sorts of wildlife, as I am not on the coast, places like Titchfield Haven are great for people like myself. I visited back in May 2015 on a very cold and windy day when the Greater Yellowlegs turned up there. Both myself and my nephew had a great day watching all sorts of Birds that I don't see much, as I said I don't live on the coast. I enjoyed watching the Avocet, Lapwing, Oyster Catchers to name but a few there. I havent been back, but hope to next year. The UK is a small place compared to many countries when it comes to areas where wildlife of all kinds can still safely be. We need to do all we can to safeguard all the areas we still have. Thanks for posting this. It's very important that we are made aware of things like this. So thank you again. John

In reply to John Harrison:

Thank you for your words of support. The developers state there will be minimal if any effect on Titchfield Haven, yet the buffer is being reduced. There needs to be a campaign to protect Titchfield Haven from this development as if this were to get the go ahead then it will open the door to reduction of the strategic gap between current residential homes from the current circa 250m to around 25m (this 25m is classed as mitigation!).

Can the RSPB make their opinion known to Fareham Borough Council?

Reply to thread Use rich formatting