Wildlife Circus

  There is a new application to build on 1 ha of open land at Chessington World of Adventures (TQ 172 622) with the  removal of 70 trees, and only 21 days to respond. 'Amazon land', will include all things that wouldn't be expected to be found in the Amazon, such as  a new rollercoaster and children’s rides along with associated buildings, structures, landscaping and incidental works. The environmental work for the above application is called an Appraisal (not an Impact Assessment or Preliminary Ecological Assessment). It was carried out in November 2020, not during the growing season, not mentioned as a limitation of the survey, and is submitted nine months later. It purports to be a Phase 1 habitat survey but it doesn't use the JNCC habitat codes and it doesn't give any references, so that we can see which version of the JNCC document it pertains to.  We are not told how long the consultant spent on site so it is really a desk study with photos. However, it does m...

The Filter Bed site at Seething Wells is facing a monster planning application Hydro Properties Planning Application . This is far more damaging than the Thames Water 2002 application, which sought only to develop the Wharf site, whilst leaving most of the heritage and wildlife areas  intact (and unaffected by water pollution, disturbance, lighting). Our council specnt £20,000 of our money at the Public Inquiry trying to defend its decision to reject the proposals. This is probably the best site in the borough for 'specialized' wildlife communities, because of the lack of disturbance. It is also an important heritage site. The main features include: The Industrial archaeology; Standing Water habitat (a UK, Regional and local Biodiversity Priority Habitat); Roost sites of European Protected Species; Birds on the Red List of Conservation Concern; 5% of Surrey's Little Grebe breeding population; Invertebrates of National, Regional and Local Importance; Chalk grassland...

December , 2010 Ecologists undertake what is called an evaluation of the habitats and species within a site. This means that they assess the rarity and fragility of it's ecological communities. This is often undertaken during an Environmental Impact Assessment. An EIA is performed when requested by a planning authority. During the EIA undertaken by Thames Water at Seething Wells, some of the ecological communities were assessed as of HIGH REGIONAL VALUE. This was part due to the invertebrate fauna in the standing water.  Four water beetles were described as Nationally Notable B species, two of which were described as 'rare inland'. The bird community is complex to describe, due to many factors including: the cyclical nature of bird populations. But reed bunting, a rare breeding species once found at Filter Bed 7, is even rarer now (sadly no longer recorded in urban areas, only at the fringes of the borough). The calcareous grassy banks (see post below) once...