Opposing a marina at Roswell
LCPRE campaigned for work on the marina to stop, and provided evidence
to the Public Hearing which upheld the Council’s Enforcement Notice
requiring the owner to remove much of the infrastructure installed on
the site without planning permission. We strongly support calls by the
Environment Agency, Natural England, the Royal Society for the Protection
of Birds and the Wildlife Trust for no further development of the marina
until a full Environmental Impact Assessment has been conducted, and unless
a full planning application detailing all work planned for the site has
been approved. In the meantime we continue to monitor developments at the
site on a daily basis, and report all activities which may be in breach
of planning or environmental legislation to the relevant authorities.
We will continue to campaign strongly against development by stealth.
Ely Wildspace
While the marina issue is a clear emergency, it also throws into focus the need
for a more strategic vision all remaining habitat
fragments around Ely.
Working with the Wildlife Trust we have canvassed the views of our entire
membership, local landowners, and hundreds of members of the public, to
develop the idea of Ely Wildspace -
a carefully zoned multiple use area
which can secure the long-term future of Ely's green spaces for wildlife
and local people alike. This has some overlap with ECDC’s plans for a
Country Park, but places more emphasis on conservation, on a light touch,
and on having very low recurrent costs.
Broader protection
We strongly believe there is a need for greater formal protection for
Ely’s remaining wildlife-rich green spaces. In 2007 we successfully
campaigned for a Tree Preservation Order which covers all the trees
around the main pit at Roswell. In 2008 we applied for the whole of
Ely Common (which was never formally registered as a Common) to be
recognised as a Village Green, which would provide it with permanent
protection from further encroachment; a final decision from the County
Council is due in September 2009.
And in 2009 Natural England confirmed that the Site of Special
Scientific Interest which protected the geology of a portion of the
Roswell area has been expanded into Ely Pits and Meadows SSSI - an
86 heacture area covering nearly all of the Ely Wildspace, and notified
not just for its fossils but for its breeding waterbirds, and in
particular its breeding and wintering bittern. LCPRE is delighted
with this national-level recognition of the importance of the habitats
around Ely, and with the protection that SSSI status affords.
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