Before: How Wontford Road Green looked last weekend, a rich habitat of wildflowers
Our environment correspondent, PAUL LUSHION, on suspicions that a rare wildlife habitat in suburban Kenley has suffered the cruellest cut
The council has been accused of an act of “wildlife vandalism”, with some angry residents of Wontford Road and Roffey Close in Kenley suspecting that grass-cutting contractors were sent in by the council to help the planning case for a controversial Brick by Brick housing development proposed for the public green space.
Wontford Road Green is on rare chalk downland. In summer, as the grass and wildflowers grow, it provides a rich habitat and food source for millions of butterflies, bees and other insects and pollinators. Rare species have been observed there.
A year ago the council trumpeted, as part of its new, climate crisis green policies, its intention to do-nothing to parks’ grassland and roadside verges, allowing nature to take its course, helping to provide habitat for under-pressure bee populations and pollinators. Some parks and open spaces have been designated trial areas – though notably not Wontford Road Green. They even now have a whole page on the council website devoted to this eco-aware approach.
Yet Croydon Council cannot even do nothing properly.
The mowers moved in on Wontford Road Green on Monday, hacking away at the tall grass and naturally-seeded wildflowers the height of summer, in the middle of a drought.
After: the Green as it looks today, rendered a green desert by the council’s overzealous grass-cutting
Local naturalists were planning to conduct a detailed entomology survey visit soon, to monitor the insects living in the wildflower meadow in suburban south London, to help make the case against the council-owned house-builders’ plans to concrete over a large part of the site.
That wildlife survey, and the evidence it might have been able to produce for the planning committee, will now not be going ahead.
The council-owned, loss-making developers have a growing reputation for paying for dodgy ecology and tree surveys to demonstrate that building on their chosen sites – previously publicly-owned land – will cause little or no environmental damage.
Croydon Council can’t even do nothing properly
Wontford Road Green was the subject of a questionable ecology survey carried out last winter, when most chalk grassland species are dormant. It delivered the desired results for Brick by Brick, with a worthless biodiversity report to support the destruction of the green to accommodate nine houses for private sale and a hideous block of 17 affordable rent flats.
Independent conservationists have visited the green twice since May. On the first visit, they recorded a scarce bee (Andrena humilis) and on the second visit, they identified a very rare vascular plant (Clinopodium acinos) that is listed in Section 41 of the 2006 Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act and is protected by the UK Biodiversity Action Plan.
The rare plant was previously recorded on Wontford Road Green in 2017 by the Surrey Botanical Society, something conveniently “overlooked” by the so-called ecology experts who were hired by Brick by Brick to prepare their biodiversity report.
Whether any trace of Clinopodium acinos might be found at Wontford Road Green now, after a visit from the council’s grass-cutters, seems unlikely. And the chances of the plant having been able to self-seed for future growing seasons will have also been reduced.
Rare: the Andrena humilis bee, as found at Wontford Road Green
As one concerned resident told Inside Croydon, “The mowing of the wildflowers in full bloom will have done Brick by Brick a massive favour, since any repeat of the ecology survey in the summer months would surely have thrown up a whole host of problems for the developers, given that the rare plant was growing within the proposed development area.
“But I’m sure the actions of the Council’s ground maintenance team is nothing more than a coincidence and in no way a wanton act of environmental vandalism.”
Others are less convinced.
There’s been strong grounds for suspicion that the establishment of a Croydon Climate Crisis Commission was never anything more than an effort by council leader Tony Newman to kick the issue into… well, the long grass. Had it not already been cut by the council contractors.
The Climate Commission, announced in July 2019, has so far met just once.
This week, a dozen civic interest groups, including Croydon Extinction Rebellion, together with five Labour councillors produced a coronavirus recovery plan, challenging Newman and the council to turn their words into actions and to cherish the borough’s existing parks and open spaces, and even create more green corridors, to benefit people as well as nature.
In the meantime, the council contractors blithely continue to mow down natural habitat, while Brick by Brick plans to concrete over it.
An angry resident who lives near Wontford Road Green has told Inside Croydon, “I’m rather shocked at this act of wildlife vandalism. This just further demonstrates what awful, ignorant people the council are.
“A letter-writing campaign of complaints to the leader of the council will demonstrate how much all the residents valued their flowering meadow and how disgusted we all are with Croydon Council for doing this to you, and during lockdown when nature close to home and is helping us all with our mental health as we watch the butterflies and listen to the grasshoppers and hear the bird song again.”
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Asking Newman to turn his words into actions is like asking Boris not to lie.
It will not happen. It is biologically, zoologically and developmentally impossible.
Someone signed off the job sheet before the grassland was cut; it would be helpful to know who that was and what experience he or she has in lowland calcareous habitat management, and what exactly is in the ‘management plan’ for this site, that’s if there is one.
A quote from the National Trust:
“Wildflower meadows on chalk downland are sometimes called Europe’s tropical rainforest. They’re home to an incredibly rich and diverse range of plant and insect life. They’re under threat …”.
Because they support such a rich and diverse range of increasingly rare species, the grasses and flowering plants should have been left unmolested until August, and preferably September, to allow all of the grass and flower heads to set and release their seeds to maximise the chance of continued survival of both the mixed sward and the insects and other invertebrate species that it supports, many of which are only found in this type of grassland.
To cut this early in the season is little short of eco-vandalism. Croydon Council should be ashamed.
Was thinking the same. I suspect the environmentally skilled people at the council [yes they do exist!] were purposely excluded from the decision making and they will be similarly sickened with what’s happened here. Does smell like an appalling political decision, done for all the wrong reasons people and nature wise, at public expense, to benefit a warped doctrine around BxB. All very Boris.
Sorry I don’t have time to as have a young family and loads on but someone could just submit a freedom of information act request
To seek sign off and authorization details. Including reasons for the work and sign off process.
Add this development proposal to all the other ones that result in loss of greenspace and biodiversity, and the sum total across the borough is tantamount to yet further loss of Croydon’s countryside, in addition to that of the 1920s and ’30s.