Homes England has proposed a new approach to the Lodge Hill development on the Hoo Peninsula in Medway, which will avoid direct Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) impacts on the Lodge Hill site.
Following further careful consideration of the environmental sensitivities in and around the site, the new plans are for up to 500 new homes, rather than the 2,000 originally proposed.
Prior to the submission of a planning application, Homes England will develop the masterplan proposals in more detail, which will be presented as part of a public consultation. It will also continue to promote the site through Medway Council’s Local Plan process.
Ken Glendinning, Head of Strategic Land, at Homes England said:
“We remain committed to creating new homes at Lodge Hill in line with the government’s policy on use of surplus land, and we have always been aware of the sensitivities surrounding the important environmental elements of this development. After careful consideration, we believe that this approach will avoid any impact on the SSSI, while still making an appropriate contribution to Medway’s housing need for local people.
“We are grateful to all of our stakeholders and partners, including Natural England, for their support and advice to date.”Homes England will look to consult on development proposals for the site in 2019 through contact with stakeholders including local residents.
ENDS
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/homes-england-proposes-new-approach-to-development-at-lodge-hill
RSPB comment, Chris Corrigan, RSPB England Director said:
Lodge Hill in Kent is recognised as the most important site for the nightingale in the UK, so plans to cover the area in concrete were met with shock and astonishment. As a recognised Site of Special Scientific Interest we should all expect it to be protected from development. Over 10,000 people have repeatedly voiced their objection.
The 10,000 voices of RSPB and Kent Wildlife Trust supporters have been heard and Homes England are revising the plans. We still need to see the final plans, so there is still some way to go, but this is an important step in the right direction. We will continue to work to ensure that the final plans safeguard Lodge Hill and its wildlife for the nation.
For background see Adrian Thomas’s guest blog from 26 January 2017.
Following on from my comment this morning where I stated that I could not find the Scottish Wildlife Crime report 2015-2017 on the RSPB website, which appeared later in the morning, again I cannot find a press release, blog entry or article since March for Lodge Hill. Could someone explain how an interested RSPB member can get access to the RSPB comment from Chris Corrigan, RSPB England Director which is quoted here.
Confused (and somewhat irritated) from Cove Bay, and one time citizen of Kent.
It’s always worth trying Google, choosing search terms carefully. It’s often better than local site search or attempted navigation. It’s certainly true of the RSPB site, which is a mess in many ways, but I suppose they need to weigh the costs – which would be great – of a major overhaul.
Still 500 houses?? In my long experience of nightingales in Kent I find they do not appear on garden lists all that often. The developers are going to need something more than the usual ‘smoke and mirrors’ to convince us that this is a workable proposal. In the last round I understand the proposed mitigation was not even in Kent, was low grade farmland with no scrub or woodland, and did not at the time even belong to either the developers or MoD. The suggestion that they could create scrub habitat rather ignored the timescale or the needs of nightingale in the intervening time.
Still it’s 500 houses proposed to be built on an SSSI, 500 too many . It would still be a precedent to build houses on an SSSI, wouldn’t it? As far as I know this hasn’t been approved before.
My reading of this is that it’s 500 homes adjacent to the SSSI, not within it. Is that the final number or is it part of an urbanising process in the vicinity of this key site? They say ‘direct’ impacts in their headline paragraph, which sounds an alarm in my mind.
Will the housing be at the very edge of the SSSI? I’d guess so. Restrictions on cat ownership have been shown to be ignored elsewhere, so presumably households will have cats. Cat-proof fences have been rejected by inspectors at Public Inquiries as a means of protecting ground-nesting birds, because a) people make holes in them and the councils don’t have the resources to ensure barriers remain barriers, b) cats jump over them and, c), if there are human access points to the SSSI, cats use those too.
Nightingales nest on the ground often, and display their presence at night by singing – sort of an audible beacon for hunting cats. My guess is that cats will soon work out where any nests are.
Unless the boundary of housing is set well back – tens of metres – from the SSSI edge, I can see indirect impacts being unavoidable.
And I wonder if the SSSI will form part of the open space to be used by residents of those 500 new homes? That’s at least 1000 additional people. How many dogs? Are these the only homes within walking distance of the SSSI?
It’s great that this SSSI wont now be directly trashed. I hope it’s not indirectly trashed.
I agree entirely with your comments re cats! My garden looks like Colditz, but they still get where water can’t! The RSPB call for folk to make a home for nature has limited success for many species.
If it’s true that the wildlife in the SSSI is protected, that’s great news. Now only the Gwent Levels, Coul Links, the dualling of the A9 at Insh Marshes, the Oxford-Cambridge corridor, etc, etc left to fight for (so far). With such a small percentage of our country still covered by wildlife rich habitats, we shouldn’t have to fight for each special place like this. What is the matter with us all?
I agree entirely, SSSIs should and ideally really must be sacrosanct, otherwise what is the point. We are a relatively small island with much of it, especially in the south almost wildlife free zones either due to intense agriculture or urban/ suburban development. Good areas for wildlife and semi-natural habitats are relatively few so designated sites must be protected and not compromised, look at the number of good sites that will be damaged by the vanity project that is HS2 for example. Planners, politicians, local and national along with developers need to get that message, SSSIs, LNRs, SPAs must be sacrosanct otherwise we will have less and less wildlife with more and more areas with almost no or impoverished biodiversity. We need to make sure they know that to many of us these things are not just important but vital.
How will developers get the message when the erstwhile ‘guardian’ fails in its statutory obligation? Here in the north such places are seen as prime sites to turn into county parks (dog walkers paradise, bikes, horses etc.) with developments around their edges. Death by a thousand cuts.
But, ever an agnostic & carry on campaigning regardless 😉
” In the last round I understand the proposed mitigation was not even in Kent, was low grade farmland with no scrub or woodland, ”
Surely the obvious solution to creating high value environmental land is to build the houses on low value environmental agricultural land and Bingo you have ready made Nightingale habitat at Lodge Hill available for nightingales.
Andrew, yes that absolutely is the answer – Lodge Hill is surrounded by intensive farmland but we haven’t got out of the post-1947 obsession with every inch of farmland protected.
There is a big risk in the ‘compensation’ concept – new green space should be right there, where the loss has been, not some cheap option in another county. Interestingly, and I haven’t seen it picked up by conservation commentators, Michael Gove has made the very important suggestion that development might have to bring green space with it. Hugely important, I don’t think that is just a Minister’s whim – the NCC has proposed 250,000 ha of new ‘community forest’ around our towns and cities. Were each hectare of greenbelt developed to bring 10 hectares of new green space we’d have a chance of meeting our housing needs and creating a real, green, greenbelt. And don’t read the ‘community forest’ as just trees – the wonderful Sta Aidan’s nature park which I visited recently at mark’s suggestion is definitely part of the idea, as are places like Rainham Marshes. The flock of Tree Sparrows in the hedge around the 2 ha of Quinoa planted for them and other winter seed eaters gives one to think – how much more to reverse more declines when so little can do so much ?