Wildlife Circus

    This post is regarding Biodiversity loss and local extinctions in the borough. It was read at  the deputation at the full council meeting 24.4.19 and includes a litany of lost species. Every day I pass this building on Cambridge Road, which reminds me of the house martins that used to nest under the eaves of the previous building  - The Peel Pub. In early years the nests used to be poked out, but at least the birds kept coming. Then they stopped coming. Now they can never return as they have been designed out of the system. The urban gradient in parts of  Kingston has increased beyond the tolerance of many urban species, including house sparrows  - a UK Priority Species, included on the list of Section 41 under the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 - due to its massive decline. This Act confers on the council - a legal duty to protect - and makes this species 'material' in any planning application. Kingston's own Good Practice Guide requires a '

Cambridge Road Estate     Correspondents Lyse Doucet and Martha Kearney covering the Israeli elections  on this morning's 'Today' programme,  were surprised as listeners 'Twittered in'  comments  regarding the house sparrows chirruping in the background. It lifted spirits to hear happy chattering, a sound once common in all our gardens. We have lost 12 million house sparrows since the 1970's. Populations continue to be  fragile in some London boroughs, due to the fast pace of development and the amount of  Total Footprint developments council's have been prepared to accept, in order to achieve their housing targets. Some councils have taken their legal obligations more seriously see February's post -house-sparrows in Ilford but as  kingston-enters-anthropocene on many environmental fronts we need some assurances that there won't be any more losses of colonies, such as at the former gasholder site opposite Sainsbury's, and the Cambrid