Our Famous Tree
A message from DKG
“Just to let you know, my photo of the lone oak with the cloud halo above it was shown on the BBC Weather report this morning”
Church Lane site
The deadline for comments on RPS’s planning application 18/10035/OUT has been extended from the 14th to the 21st of December. The application had not been properly advertised at the beginning of the consultation period.
FoSCP feels strongly that development on this site will damage Lambrok Stream. There are protected and vulnerable species in the park that live or breed or feed in the Lambrok. If you feel the same way, please comment on Wiltshire Council’s planning website.
Who ARE these people?
We received this picture and the following mail today, Wednesday December 5th:
These 2 men, both wearing black jackets, one pushing a pram, one with a cream satchel bag: also with 2 all black, skinny lurcher/ ratter like dogs were firing stones or slingshotting the 2 ducks on the pond today at approx 12:10.
Continue reading “Who ARE these people?”Notes from Southwick Country Park
by Sarah Marsh
A new species has been spotted in the Country Park.
Continue reading “Notes from Southwick Country Park”Christmas Market
The Friends of Southwick Country Park will be manning a stall at Hope Nature Centre’s Christmas Market this evening. It begins at 6.00pm; come and look us up.
Have your say…
Several readers on our Facebook page have said that they are having trouble finding the right place to voice their objections to Planning Application 18/10035/OUT; this is the plan for up to 65 houses on the field between Church Lane and Southwick Country Park.
Here is a link directly to the right page.
The comments box can be enlarged from the tag in its bottom right hand corner and you get 32,000 characters (about 5,000 words) to have your say. You can copy and paste into the box from most document formats but we haven’t been able to make it upload photographs yet.
The request for personal information looks more intrusive than it is; you need only fill in the boxes marked with a red asterisk. Don’t forget to press the submit button.
Wiltshire Council’s website is a dreadful place; there is always somebody digging up the pipes or knocking holes in the walls. There are whole days when it speaks only in code. For the sake of the park, be brave; find the right page and have your say.
Continue reading “Have your say…”Protecting the Lambrok
In May of 2017, water voles (Arvicola amphibius) were identified by Wiltshire’s Countryside Team as resident in Lambrok Stream. Water voles are fully protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. They are protected against:
. . .intentional killing, capture or injury and intentional or reckless disturbance, obstruction, damage or destruction of their burrows.
Continue reading “Protecting the Lambrok”Another Church Lane planning submission
RPS, acting for a named client, has submitted an outline planning application for the Church Lane site. The Wiltshire Council reference number for the application is 18/10035/OUT. This morning, searching with this reference produced this result:
Continue reading “Another Church Lane planning submission”WHSAP – report submitted
Today, FoSCP submitted the report of their objections to the Schedule of Changes to the Wiltshire Housing Site Allocation plan. The plan proposes that land at Church Lane, Upper Studley and Southwick Court should be made available for development; we believe that development at these sites will damage the ecology of Lambrok Stream and subsequently the ecology of the park.
WHSAP public consultation
Wiltshire Council has finally opened a consultation portal on the proposed changes to the draft Wiltshire Housing Site Allocation Plan. The consultation period will last for six weeks; it began on Thursday, 27th September and will end on Friday, 9th of November.
Criminal damage
The bench by the decorated bridge has been damaged and will probably have to be replaced. One of the supports has been snapped right off. There is no sign of rot in the wood; it must have taken considerable force to achieve. A bench like this one, and its installation, costs £500.
Wiltshire’s Housing Plan
The latest update:
The Inspector has returned one of the documents of the WHSAP submission with the requirement that it be put forward for public consultation.
parkrunner of the year!
Frank Lamerton, long-time Friend of the park and regular work party volunteer, is Southwick Country Park’s parkrunner of the year.
Marilyn Maundrell
This from David Feather:
“My wife and I have learnt that Marilyn Maundrell has recently died. She was an enthusiastic Friend of Southwick Country Park for many years. She brightened up many of our events and meetings with her cheery manner and was a great ambassador for the Country Park. She was only defeated by difficulties with walking which eventually took her into Wingfield Nursing Home, where she died on August 19th. People will remember her smile. It was infectious.
Her funeral will take place at 12.15 on Monday 10 September at Semington Crematorium.”
.o0o.
Assessing Wiltshire’s housing plan
Let’s go back to the documents that were submitted to the Secretary of State on July 31st: in that list are Sustainability Appraisal Documents, among which is Annex 1 A9 Trowbridge.
WHSAP update
The Wiltshire Housing Site Allocation Plan was submitted to the Secretary of State on July 31st 2018. The documents that were submitted can be accessed here.
The bin in the picnic area has been mended by FoSCP volunteers and our Countryside Officer. Unfortunately the missing part to the gate latch has not been found; whoever took it must have brought their own spanner because the bolts that attached it have been unscrewed. Somebody apparently came equipped to steal half a gate latch….
Damage in the picnic area
The waste bin in the picnic area has been pushed over and the catch on the gate broken. Hopefully, with a lot of manpower and effort, we can right the bin; a new bin in a concrete base is very expensive.
Half of the gate latch has been thrown or carried away. If anybody sees it, please pick it up and report it to FoSCP; use the contact details here on the website. If we have the other half, we can mend it.
We know that the huge majority of the park’s users are careful and considerate, that it is a small minority who damage things. Please report any vandalism that you see.
FoSCP.
Night Flyers
Bats and WHSAP
Nine species of bats have been identified in the park, among them members of the UK’s rare, internationally important population of Bechstein’s bats that roost in Green Lane Wood.
…
Natterers bat by Guido Gerding (CC3.0)
Daubenton’s bat Guido Gerding (CC.3.0)
Nathusius pipistrelle by fs-phil ((CC2.0)
Common Pipistrelle by Barracuda 1983 (CC3.0)
Wiltshire Housing Site Allocation Plan
We have been exploring the trackless wastes of the Wiltshire Council’s website, hacking through dense thickets of acronyms, all the while under attack from syntactical monsters such as:
Sustainability Appraisal (SA) is iterative and integrated into the plan-making process, influencing the selection of site options and policies through the assessment of likely significant effects….
Who to write to about Trowbridge housing plan
A lot of people have asked who they can contact either to ask questions about the Wiltshire Housing Site Allocation Plan (henceforth known as WHSAP) or to register their objection to it.
Continue reading “Who to write to about Trowbridge housing plan”
Wildlife corridor
Above is an aerial photograph of the wildlife corridor between Trowbridge and the villages of Southwick and North Bradley. It connects the woods and open farmland east of the railway line to Southwick Country Park, Sleight Wood and Vaggs Hill in the west. Rare Bechstein’s bats from Green Lane Wood use the corridor to reach SCP where they feed.
Lambrok Stream threatened
Lambrok Stream is the heart of the park’s ecosystem; the residential development proposed for Church Lane threatens its well-being.
Housing proposal for Church Lane
RPS is preparing a planning application for a residential development in the field between the park and Church Lane; the field is shaded yellow in the map above.
The vandalism spreads
At half term, there was more damage to the trees in the copse at the top of Village Green, fortunately nothing fatal this time but still significant. There was evidence of a camp. The rough grassland, left for wildlife, where we have been planting native daffodils, had been trampled flat in places. We picked up the litter and hoped it was an isolated incident.
