| In a feat of both irony, and good timing thematically, the presenter met the five minute limit for Presentments, and was cut short. The first part was an apology from the New Forest Association for not displaying our support for the Latchmore project "often enough, publicly enough, or possibly well enough." allowing snide comments and poor treatment of the Verderers, Forestry Commission and National Park Authority to stand. The second part shifts emphasis to addressing areas that concern all of us about the project, Wildlife, Material Delivery Routes and Beauty. |
...I won't make up for lost time now. I have a critique of more than ten errors on just one of their webpages which I've sent separately to the Verderers (on our news page). But I beg the courts indulgence to address a few points. Amongst the more emotive subjects, the potential disturbance to and loss of wildlife in the implementation itself. Of course this is of concern, but there's a reason why we view the end-of-days prognostication of those opposed as baseless conjecture.
2119. Two thousand One Hundred and Nineteen. This is the non-exclusive number of completed River Restoration projects in the UK since 1994 listed in the database of the River Restoration Centre. Some smaller, some larger: the Cumbria River Restoration Strategy (CRRS) a partnership project between Natural England, the Environment Agency and the Rivers Trusts of Eden, West Cumbria and South Cumbria won the 2016 UK River Prize. They restored 14 km of river across the three catchments to a more natural form. Not all restore meanders, only 1593 had Habitat objectives, some were done for Flood Risk, Fisheries, etc. 120 are listed as a result of Community Demand. But all would have had the issue of disturbance to wildlife. Projects including hundreds of Rivers Trusts, Catchment Partnerships, private estates, the Royal Parks, the National Trust, amongst others. When the RSPB, and the Wildlife Trusts, and their ecologists support the Latchmore Brook project and other Forest wetland restorations, they do so with their experience, including many projects on the land they manage. If the consequences, in 22 years and 2119 projects, were as dire as the leaders of the opposition contend, I should think we'd have heard about it by now, or certainly their researches would have brought this to our attention.
We do all share concerns about the project. The New Forest History and Archaeology Group have raised issues with the survey, we believe they are surmountable and encourage all interested parties to work towards a solution.
Movement of materials to the site may cause disturbance and inconvenience to those along the delivery routes. I've seen and heard alarming figures, 70HGV movements a day or 44000 HGVs, which I've discovered to be ridiculously overblown. Not that I blame anyone for getting this wrong as the planning documents do not lay out the information in a helpful way. I've already had a private go at the FC and LUC over their need to provide concise and useful figures for the public to properly convey the size of the issue. The route through Ogdens, for example, we've been told this will be used in three years of the project, which is worrying, but hazard a guess at how many days would be necessary for deliveries through Ogdens in 2017 - 6, 2018 - 1, that's right in 2018 they only need to make approx 7 deliveries on that route that year, 2020 - 28, of course that will bear more discussion, but it brings perspective. For the entire project all routes all years combined there will be fewer than 10k HGV movements, fewer than 11k in the worst case scenario we've run. I'll be putting up our numbers on our newspage later today, available to all, even if you want to scare people with numbers at least you can use realistic figures.
Finally, many are rightfully concerned about the future beauty of the Latchmore Brook. Walking along Latchmore Shade, you will clearly see the original meanders. In some cases you will see this as gently undulating curves written as a gentle scar in the landscape, it is easy to imagine a pleasant stream flowing along this course. Elsewhere the meanders have been eroded into unattractive ruts, and in other places the area between the current water course and the meanders become a quagmire when the drains rush water into the area, the flood in the now dysfunctional flood plain is partially contained by the meander, not allowing much onto the adjacent grazing. Fixing this will not make the area any less beautiful. I spoke of the prizewinning project in Cumbria, which we may begrudgingly agree is also an iconic landscape. That project was twice the size of Latchmore.Look at Warwickslade Cutting and Fletchers Thorns amongst many of the completed restorations which have bedded in, they look absolutely lovely now. There are many to choose from, but don't impatiently show up moments after the diggers left and expect an instantaneous transformation. Give nature time to do its magic. After all nature took its time creating those meanders before they were ruined.
| -- Brian Tarnoff, Chair, Habitat and Landscape Committee New Forest Asssociation While this second part was not read in the open court, the full presentment was distributed in written form to the Verderers, as well as the Annotated Fact Check of the Latchmore Crowdfunding Page. Much of this half of the Presentment was repurposed in the Public Questions section of the subsequent National Park Authority meeting, with an emphasis on addressing the PR problem now faced by Wetland Restorations in the wake of the leaders of the opposition to Latchmore's concerted campaign of misinformation, misrepresentation, hyperbole and pseudoscience. |
