I’m back! At least I think I am!
My broadband has been off for days (but luckily I could parasitise friends’ wifi at times) but is now on again (or did I speak too soon?).
Yesterday evening I tried to persuade the Nottingham RSPB Local Group to support bird conservationists in the rival city of Derby in their fight to persuade Derby City Council not to destroy an important local nature reserve. Derby and Nottingham (at least in the shape of Notts Forest) are once again keen football rivals (4th and 5th respectively in the Championship) but nature can bring us all together.
With my broadband restored I have lodged my objection to the scheme and so can you by following the link and using the information in Tuesday’s Guest Blog by Richard Winspear.
And can you please all keep your fingers crossed that my broadband is back to stay?! Thank you.
More campaigning zeal tomorrow.
[registration_form]
Did you manage to convince to object to this development and support Derby?
Lorraine – some. I think!
Welcome back!
No doubt your ‘Continuity Plan’ has been updated with your recent experiences.
If you were to review that and your increased twitter load – the decision to add your twitter feed to your blog looks like a good idea.
Cheers
http://www.newsbiscuit.com/2014/01/10/global-celebration-as-man-announces-safe-pizza-delivery-arrival-on-twitter/
Dare one enquire what if any support Natural England have been? Sadly, given it is ‘only’ a LNR they are unlikely to have commented on the application, but just occasionally there is a faint glimmer of hope.
Has an invertebrate survey been carried out? Quite often brownfield sites host interesting discoveries. The ‘campaign coalition’ looks well able to catalogue species of conservation interest etc.
In point 7 of Richard’s guest blog, mention is made of need. Has an alternative site for this outdoor track been looked at? If they’ve not demonstrated IROPI or that they’ve considered alternative options then they have not followed guidelines.
Good luck
Mark, we really do need their support and that of many others. The current staus of the application shows the council has received 94 letters in favour of the development and only 23 against! There are a few Nottingham addresses in there, but who knows they might be supporters of the track! Worrying times!
I submitted an objection a couple of days ago but it hasn’t appeared in the list of responses. I hope my objection has not just disappeared into the ether…
Mark: thanks for objecting and encouraging rspb Nottingham to do likewise. Much appreciated. The story is getting good local media coverage but if you or your readers have contacts with the nationals please point them in our direction and towards your blog too of course.
Mud-Lark: as you suggest, NE have not been of much help (and took ages to give us the information we asked them for). They made it clear that LNRs are neither designated (or de-designated) by them but by local authorities like the city council in Derby, effectively effectively washing their hands of this matter.
Some invert study was undertaken but not enough, either by us or the council’s ecological consultants. The site is normally only viewable from the perimeter viewing platforms so on-site studies require the council’s permission. BTW: The council has carried out hardly any management work in the last five years and the perimeter fence has been breached many times, allowing dog walkers and rabbit catchers easy access – to the detriment of ground nesting birds.
Some alternative sites were (belatedly) looked at by the council but since the funder British Cycling insist the track must go adjacent to the new velodrome (ie on the LNR), all the alternatives were dismissed pretty much ‘out of hand’ for that reason. One wonders if the council may have colluded with BC over this….convenient for them that the funder is pulling this particular string isn’t it!
Lorraine: thanks for your support and for urging people to object. For various reasons we have only just emailed all our known supporters so we hope for a flood of objections in the next few days. Certainly quite a few have gone in today but are not yet showing on the council’s e-planning pages. As you suggest, neither names of supporters/objectors nor their comments are now viewable on the e-planning pages.
Nick
Ps. We are aware of several objections which originated via this blog…..so again, many thanks Mark (and Richard!)