Wildlife Circus

In 2014, I was contacted by the police after residents complained that, despite a lot of bat activity at the former Dairy Crest site, demolition was taking place. The police investigated and surveys had indeed found that there were roosting bats on the site.  There is some discrepancy regarding the number of bats and the species recorded but this cannot be substantiated several years later. I do have the original Phase 1 habitat survey that demonstrated there was habitat, of  a sort, on the site. Bat surveys and a Bat Mitigation Method Statement- as part of a Bat licence application -were submitted  to the planning file.  However, no appropriate bat mitigation and Net Gain measures for biodiversity were conditioned. This meant that none of it actually happened or if it did - then it is inappropriately sited - under multiple sources of lighting and a lack of any vegetation links. When the site was opened earlier this year for residents to move in, none of the bat mi...

  Biodiversity Net Gain at the Ice Centre? Posted on 31 May 2021 by Save Lea Marshes                Linked post: waterworks-meadow Last autumn the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority submitted a planning application to the London Borough of Waltham Forest to double the size of the Ice Centre on the Lea Bridge Road.  This site is Metropolitan Open Land (MOL), so the Authority needed to have very compelling arguments amounting to ‘Very Special Circumstances’ to support the application.  Foremost among these arguments was the claim that the development would produce a large “biodiversity net gain” (BNG). Paragraph 170 of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF, 2019) states that Planning policies and decisions should contribute to and enhance the natural and local environment by … providing net gains for biodiversity. This is interpreted to me...