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Henfield Common archaic grassland damage
Below is a statement
from the Sussex Wildlife Trust to me: 30/05/17.
BELOW THAT
is a short response from me.
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Hi Dave,
The meeting
last week with Henfield PC ended up positive. They acknowledged our concerns
and wanted to find a way forward. Henfield PC made it clear that they
have restrictions in terms of funding and risks of breach of contract with
contractors and that the football pitches on the common are part of a chain of
activities happening through the Parish. They were also were clear
that their priority is to restore the football pitches into a playable
condition,
as per their lease with Horsham DC. They also acknowledged that they
should have consulted with us earlier in the process and welcome SWT as a
consultee on any future management issues on the Common.
In the
meeting Tony accepted that the work would happen including the draining of the
site, and options to reduce the damage to the biodiversity interest were
investigated. These covered 1. least disturbance, 2. a less aggressive
seed mix, 3, minimal fertilizer.
This started
a conversations outside the meeting with contractors that has changed the shape
of the proposal (involving less application of fertilizer, different seedmix,
3m buffer). It is still far from ideal and we acknowledge that lots of
botanical interest will be irreprably lost so SWT continue to express our
disappointment.
At some
point in the near future there will be a joint statement from Henfield PC and
SWT that reflects the above.
Longer term
SWT will have more input into decisions taken on Henfield Common and we still
plan to write to all the statutory agencies that we think failed to give
Henfield PC the right advice in this issue. Additionally for me, it
shines a light on gaps in our own SWT resources for dealing with issues like
this. We know that we are very under-resourced in the ‘Conservation
Policy’ area, but to me it is clear that being able to have a proactive
approach at a neighbourhood level could prevent situations like this happening,
if we had a relationship and dialogue with Parish groups and councils as a
matter
of course.
So I think
that is where we have got to for now with this.
Best wishes
Henri
RESPONSE
FROM DAVE BANGS
The SWT say
their meeting with Henfield Parish Council “ended up positive”...but it is
difficult to see anything positive in it at all. The drainage and the
destruction
of the sward all over the project site are underway with no opportunity for any
environmental impact assessment...and no last minute push that I know of to
mobilise their own recording effort before the destruction re-started.
Today the
tractors were disc harrowing the ground, which now looks like a ploughed field.
The majority of the Chamomile lawn is gone.
This is not
a surprise, because it was clear from my earlier short exchange with the Trust
that
their goals were vanishingly modest...essentially re-establishing a relationship
with the Parish Council.
The football
pitch development is, I think, an intensification of what was there before,
with two pitches (one at each end of the Memorial Field) and a cricket club
practice
area in the middle (which already has an astroturf wicket).
Yet an
obvious way forward would have been to place the two restored football pitches
in the centre of the field and allow the most species-rich east and west ends
of the field (the chamomile lawn and the peaty marshy ground) to continue under
their till-now management.
The drainage
plans are very bad news with a ring drain and 3 metre spaced drains and
additional
sub-surface drainage, yet the retention of the east and west ends for nature
would
have enabled them to be excluded from the drainage scheme.
However, there
were no proper discussions (beyond a last-minute hurried telephone conference)
between
myself and the SWT which could have briefed them with these and other options.
No big effort to
engage NE or Horsham District Council’s planning enforcement team with our case
was reported to me, and the SWT intend merely intend to give them a post-hoc
telling off...though the NE EIA team has not yet even given any indication of
whether they wish to call the development in. What will be the SWT's position
if the NE EIA team do call it in ?
The SWT
entered the meeting with the parish council without having generated any
additional media publicity or developed their stance with me in any proper way.
Furthermore, they did not defend my presence in the meeting, thus cutting
themselves off from the information with which I could have resourced it.
In one
matter, the SWT’s statement is correct, and that is that their local knowledge
and engagement is frighteningly weak. This is the third recent occasion on
which I have been startled to realise that they do not know of important local
site endangerments a few minutes journey time from Woods Mill. How come the SWT
in Henfield missed an issue like this for some THREE YEARS?
No wonder the
parish council are so rattled by last-minute whistleblowing from a guy who
lives 10 miles away in Brighton,
Dave Bangs
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