The Christmas tale: a day of listening

 

 

This is a Christmas tale of voices heard at last, more specifically a tale of: -

• an arthritic woman in a meadow;
• an emerald green - belt of slow worms trapped in front of a reptile fence;
• an entourage of politicians.
  

 Stage right Scene Kingsmeadow.

Despite neighbourhood zoom meetings (at a cost of £2,500 for guest appearances) elucidating tomes of written disapproval on methodology and mitigation, noone actually listened to residents living in the ward on the dysfunctional deed that has now been done. Consultants counter -  commentaries were paid for and published (although the invoices for these have disappeared).

But none can ignore the-: small size of the site; the narrow strip (marked grey in the plan) that confines the animals; the membrane that covers the former car park that will entrap them; and the three developments of 7, 5 and 5 storeys that will surround them, blocking out the sun (a pre-requisite for a basking creature).

The membrane or liner is evident wherever digging has been carried out at the former car park, to where the slow worms have been translocated. It has always been evident. Those putting in the reptile refugia had to pull it up to install log refugias. It came up when the boreholes were dug and the posts for the hoardings sunk (as above).

Councillors were recently shown the above liner during the only opportunity to see them on site - at the Lib Dem photo call for their election publicity, so none can deny its existence.  They could also see that the slow worms have been translocated into ostensibly a development site. But worse: -

This video has been uploaded to YouTube  to indicate the distribution of slow worms. In the video, the animals are concentrated to the south of the chain link fence. The area north of the chain link fence is where the new development will be constructed and from where the slow worms were moved. The area in the video is shown as emerald green in the plan and is on the south side of the chain link fence.

This area was not cleared during the translocations sagas, October 2021 so there is nothing to stop the slow worms migrating back to the development site, beyond the chain link fence. I visited the translocation site and spoke to the various ecologists - some had travelled more than two hours from Warwickshire - during the second week of October, they were not instructed to clear the emerald green.

Four layers of fencing: - post and rail, black reptile, blue hoardings, and chainlink interior fence with palisade gate.
 

No thoughts to the prey these animals require, or compensation for the species lost in the invertebrate community: - wasp spiders, marbled whites, common blue butterflies, crickets and grasshoppers; or the stifling membrane that may prevent future egress above ground. 

A box is ticked, photos are taken, bills are paid, slow worms fade

so  counter - commentary that!