I live in Mid Cornwall the location of one of four proposed Eco Towns across the county. What I can't get my head around is Baal Pit and West Carclaze is naturally regenerated land and the wildlife around Baal is excellent with roe deer (frequent visitors to my garden), hedgehogs, stoats and bats amongst some of the mammals present. Many bird species (my neighbour has seen over a hundred in the last few years) are present 15 of which are on The RSPB Red list of endangered Birds - Cuckoos, Skylark, Willow Tit, Linnet, Song Thrush and the often heard but rarely seen Grasshopper Warbler are amongst them. There another 26 species which are on the RSPB Amber List - Green Woodpecker, Reed Bunting, Sand Martin, Mistle Thrush and Swift are included. With over 20 species of butterfly, moths, grass snakes, adders, slow worms and a whole lot more.
To build at this location will be an environmental disaster and dispite the concerns of CPRE, Cornwall Wildlife and other conservation groups Cornwall Council, an Egyptian developer, the land owner and The Eden Project (double standards here) are hell bend in developing the land, all for financial gain.
I'm not against development and support green issues, but I just can't gauge the concept of killing off all the flora and fauna in the name of glorified eco housing estates.
Oh, the location even appeared on the BBC1 series Secret Britain, whereby Julia Bradbury described the area as stunning and gorgeous ... little did she know its' ill fate.
Rant over, does anyone have any areas of experience that can give me any pointers, etc? We are a small group fighting to save an important nature reserve and need as much help as possible.
Thank you.
I have linked here or advice on 'Protecting Wildlife Sites near You' which i hope will be of some practical use.
Warden Intern at Otmoor.
Hi Cornish Maid,
Cornwall is a long way from the Midlands where I work but as a planning officer for the RSPB who has looked at about half-a-dozen ecotown proposals up this way, I have a little experience of these things. As a first point, I suggest you should get in touch with a conservation officer in our SW regional office who should be able to give you the local view. This page on our website includes the phone numbers for all the English regional offices. http://www.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/around_the_uk/england.aspx I'm not sure who you should speak to but explain to the receptionist what you want to know and they'll find the right person for you.
Without knowing the site or the details of the case I can only speak in general terms, and what I say below is totally subject to the better local knowledge and perspectives of my SW colleagues, but...
The first thing is that the small number of eco-towns that made it onto the final list have already gone through a lengthy selection procedure that amongst other things, should have eliminated those proposals that would damage any really important wildlife sites like SSSIs and European sites. This process hasn't been as rigorous as we'd like though, because the RSPB still has major concerns about at least one eco-town proposal, Bordon-Whitehill in the SE, which is right next to some really important heathlands that are protected under EU law. So it's worth asking the question whether this development WOULD damage some important protected sites.
Having said that, I'm going to assume for now that your eco-town proposal isn't stuck bang on top of an SSSI or something like that (but I could be wrong and that's why you should check with my SW colleagues).
So now we have to look at the species and habitats actually present on the site to see if there's an adequately strong case to justify an outright objection, or to build a case leading to the formal protection of the site under local planning policy or (perhaps) as an SSSI (though achieving the latter will be very difficult). Again, I don't have the local knowledge necessary but based on the birds you've mentioned, I believe that mounting a strong case against the eco-town as a matter of principle will be very hard.
Although it's true that the birds you mention are on the Red and Amber lists, most of them are still relatively common (even though overall populations might only be 10% of what they were 30 years ago) and certainly widespread and characteristic species of similar habitats across lowland England. A case based on harm to local populations of most of these bird species probably wouldn't carry the day as such a tiny percentage of the UK population would be affected. Though many of these species like skylarks, willow tits etc are priorities for RSPB conservation action, our work focuses on the real causes of the declines, which is generally not the loss of land to development but the way the countryside at large is managed under farming and woodland management systems.
But it's still worth putting together a submission based on impacts on wildlife, and hopefully the information Ian pointed you to will be of some help in doing this. And some of the other species you mentioned (like adders and slow worms) might well be sufficiently important locally at least to cause a rethink in terms of the precise design and layout of any development, or the level of legal protection that the site should be covered by.
I hope this is of some help.
Colin