Wildlife Circus

  Open Space in Tolworth is shrinking. Hectare by hectare, open land is now covered with new development with more in the pipeline. This ranges from the: LIDL headquarters on Jubilee Way (photo below); 106 apartments at Tala Close  (formerly a field adjacent to Tolworth School photo above); and related infrastructure projects. The  London Plan Annual Monitoring Review 2016 (No. 13) stated, 'The largest area of locally protected open space that was subject to planning permissions in 2015/16 is 2 hectares at the Tolworth Girls School and Recreation Centre in Kingston upon Thames which will provide housing as part of the scheme to expand and remodel the existing school'. New developments require infrastructure, so 'edgelands' or areas on the fringes of industrial estates are used for cycle routes, access roads, etc. No new areas of POS (Public Open Space) are actually provided. In fact the Travel Plan for the development at Tolworth Towers infers that open space not pu...

  Summary ·         The proposed scheme will leave a biodiversity crater in Norbiton and is a massive fail on sustainability issues. The Environmental Statement is flawed and the mitigation unrealistic. There is no biodiversity gain from this application and there will be a huge impact from pollutants arising from tree loss on air quality, and increased amounts of sewage entering the Hogsmill. The council have a huge conflict of interest here and by the allowing this will fail in their biodiversity duty and their declaration of a Climate Emergency. ·         The scheme is not future proofed and is therefore unsustainable; it has not understood that our current demands on the environment have led to the global pandemic and it has not undertaken a health impact assessment, which should be undertaken as a matter of urgency. ·         With a predicted 6881 people in an are...