Wildlife Circus

Tree felling Kingsmeadow S. Kay    Last year I sent a Christmas letter to 48 councillors - asking them to attend to the environmental destruction occurring in the borough - which you can see here biodiversity-air-and-water-letter-to-48. But unauthorised tree felling continued during January, captured so well by several witnesses attending Kingsmeadow in an attempt not only to halt the felling of a row of healthy Monterrey Pines - and other mature trees- but also the tipping of several cubic metres of contaminated soil down the riverbank in order to construct a new discus throwing area, without the necessary planning permission or ecological impact assessment reptiles-in-borough     One of the 28 policies in the Kingston Tree Strategy is that 'permission will not be given for healthy trees to be felled'. So I thought it prudent to remind councillors of their biodiversity duty under the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act, 2006 at the Environment a...

During the presentation we were informed that  the 706 ha of open space managed by Kingston Council includes: 350 ha of publicly owned open space; and  356 ha of privately owned open space in the borough (such as Six-Acre Meadow or Millais' meadow owned by Merton College).  Since 2008, there has been efficiency savings of £400,000.The budget is currently £2.2 million compared with: Wandsworth 607 ha £2.4 million Richmond 500 ha £3.5 million Ealing 947 ha £2.8 million Contracts are coming up for renewal and further savings must be made. In this context it has made us appreciate some of progress made in the borough and we are anxious not to lose these gains. We were able to make comments in notebooks  under various headings such as Biodiversity; Trees; Community Engagement etc.Under Biodiversity the list seem to be growing rapidly and  some of the comments included concern over: Dogs ring-barking trees around the borough; The unofficial landf...