Wildlife Circus

       Update Application Refused: at the Planning Committee meeting 11.3.26, the application was presented by planning officer Joel Turner. It was  refused on the basis of   substantial harm to the Metropolitan Open Land due to the scale, height, massing of the proposal . Although councillors recognised that we are in 'tilted balance' and the housing units were much needed, this was the wrong location; it was also out of character, 16 storeys was not in keeping with the character of the area, representing an overdevelopment.  Cllr Davy: We keep being told that this will represent 'no substantial harm to the MoL and I can't help but wonder what would count as substantial harm'. Cllr Sadr-Hashemi (to planning officer):  'it seems that this is not meeting our tall buildings policy, can you speak to that?'  Cllr Giles: The Council's Capacity Assessment (2019) was for 78-166 homes (Call for Sites) and 586 greatly exceeds this number  Cl...

checking the bat box from the ground Kent design bat box showing fur staining  After a training session for prospective bat roost visitors at Richmond Park, 28.3.15, members of the London Bat Group went to the Roebuck Inn to toast the launch of the London Bat Atlas. It was initiated during 2010 with seed funding from the Vodafone ‘World of a Difference’ fund, which helped employ the services of Richard Law, to gather together the existing data holdings, as well as investigate the type of document and layout we wanted. It took longer to accomplish than we originally thought, but with the help of Greenspace information for Greater London, our group has produced a document, which is as accurate as possible, but easy to access the information. It is an example of the importance of submitting biological records, especially in this time of ‘blink and you miss it’ demolition and re-development. As always it exemplifies those boroughs where there are active bat group membe...

   London Bat Group along with Biggles the bat attended the annual Seething Wells Festival  Procession see  http://m.surreycomet.co.uk The weather held until 5pm by which time, most of the bats had gone to roost!