Ancient woodland under threat

Sat 30 Oct 2021, 08:39

A few years ago Charlbury didn’t have any identified ancient woodland.  As luck wouldn’t have it the parish's only piece of known ancient woodland habitat appears as if it is going to have a 37 dwelling housing estate butted up against it and it will be selectively felled to facilitate the development.

At some point since the Rushy Bank application was first made the woodland behind the site has been recognised by Natural England as ancient woodland, previously too small to have been included in the register.  Ancient woodland is woodland which has been continuously wooded since at least 1600, not that it is full of ancient trees: in this case the wood has been overplanted with poplar.  Ancient woodland is however rare and protected.  National planning policy is that development resulting in the loss or deterioration of irreplaceable habitats (such as ancient woodland and ancient or veteran trees) should be refused, unless there are wholly exceptional reasons and a suitable compensation strategy exists.  This test was never applied when this development was consented because the status of the woodland was not identified.

Earlier this month Leamington Spa developer HarperCrewe which is owned and managed by Adrian Bloor (formerly of Bloor Homes) submitted an application (21/03266/CND) to get various conditions to starting the Rushy Bank development signed off.  As some will remember, this development was previously being led by the Rushy Bank Partnership but it appears that HarperCrewe is now developer and contractor for the project.  Rushy Bank Partnership won’t provide any clarification of HarperCrewe’s role in what was sold as a development “by members of our community for members of our community”.

This development is not on the woodland site but building is proposed close to the edge of the woodland which has 20m+ trees. The HarperCrewe application includes further detail on its tree protection proposals.  It notes that “Selected individual trees may be pruned or removed to facilitate the approved development” and that “Nearly all trees are outside the actual site boundary but the suggestion is to use a 10m protection zone offset from the trunks of any trees to be retained.” (italics added).  It certainly appears from plans as if building will be within 10m of the woodland periphery.  The solution of course would be to remove the trees.  A 10m protection zone is almost certainly inadequate too given that poplars have shallow root systems spanning many times their height.  So even more trees are probably threatened with removal.

The poplars are not going to stand forever, but what replanting might have been done if this development did not take place will no doubt be heavily compromised by the proximity of occupied dwellings.

Nor will the harm to the habitat be restricted to tree removal with light, noise and air pollution from the development and although the scheme proposes to restrict people access, that won’t of course stop the residents’ cats.

Not only has this development been approved by WODC and OCC, they (i.e. we) are also funding £500k for the cost of the proposed assisted living facility.  That funding should give the councils the ability to stall the development if they wished but when the ancient woodland designation was highlighted to WODC in May, it claimed these were old arguments and its support for the development was unchanged. Plus ça change.

There was an article about this in the Oxford Mail yesterday.