Dear Mike Wilmott,

I wish to register objections to Planning Application 13/02080/OUT

A.In the first instance, I refer to a letter to Mrs Abernethie, the Town Clerk of Warminster, dated October 3, 2013 signed by Chris Beaver, Planning Director of G.L.Hearn.

B.I then refer to Keystone Biodiversity Value Assessment Revision 1 of December 2013

A.In this letter Mr Beaver attempts to rebut objections raised to G.L.Hearn’s planning application.

(1)The first objection raised (1) was that the building of 35 houses more or less on the banks of the River Wylye would be detrimental to the River Wylye.

Mr Beaver, both in his letter, and in his speech to the Warminster Planning committee on January 13th, 2014, has stated that his company has had “extensive discussions with Natural England, the Environment Agency, and the County Ecologist for Wiltshire.”

His argument in this paragraph is very seriously flawed: 1.1.No report from either Natural England, the Environment Agency, or the County Ecologist for Wiltshire, was submitted to that meeting of the Planning Committee. We note the letter sent by Alice Walker of Natural England to Peter Horton in Wiltshire Council, date January 20, 2014. In it, Ms Walker states (p3 of 3) “We have not assessed this application and associated documents for impacts on protected species.” She merely refers to Natural England’s Standing Advice on this matter.

1.2. No opportunity has been given for those who oppose the development to cross-examine the individuals from Natural England, the Environment Agency, or the County Ecologist for Wiltshire, who, according to Mr Beaver, support the planning application. Any objectors to such a planning application as this are surely entitled to ask: Who are these people who recommend building on such a sensitive site? What qualifications do they have as zoologists, botanists, etc? What gives them such assurance to pronounce on such a sensitive topic with unquestioned authority? Even Mr Beaver admits that the river Wylye is a site of Special Scientific Interest. Surely this demands that anyone wishing to support this application should state their qualifications as naturalists, and offer scientific papers they have written and published as evidence of their qualifications, so that their qualifications can be evaluated by other scientists.

1.3.Mr Beaver describes (very briefly) an “ecology zone” which will be constructed between the housing estate and the banks of the Wylye, and describes the firm’s intention to build otter holts, bat boxes, and an improved habitat for water voles. Those of us who live on the banks of the Wylye know very well from experience that otters and water voles are extremely shy, extremely unlikely to choose specially erected habitats of any sort. Water voles are an endangered species; those of us who have the privilege of living near to these rare mammals know very well that they do not require “improved habitats”; they require to be left alone in the few stretches of wild river bank still remaining.

1.4. Mr Beaver quotes an objection (4) which states “The development will have an adverse affect on the integrity of an important water course.” His argument is merely a restatement of his remarks on objection (1).

We are dealing with very sensitive ecological sites. Any arbitrator should weigh very carefully the evidence of people living in the precise area against the evidence of nominated ‘experts’ who may make studies of the area, but do not experience it from day to day. For example, the Somerset levels have been under water for several weeks. The Environment Agency gave up dredging the rivers twenty years ago, and they are now seriously silted, and thus less able to carry off the surplus water. The people who live there, and especially the farmers, all say that the abandonment of dredging the rivers has caused the flooding. The Environment Agency attempt to defend their abandonment of dredging, and say the lack of dredging was not the main cause of the floods.

To whom should an arbitrator listen? To the locals, or to the ‘experts.’

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B.The developers G.L.Hearn rely on Keystone, a company whose slogan is “making ecology our business”. Their website publishes three statements of client satisfaction. Two are from developers: one from the Utilities Industry, and one from Barratt Strategic Residential Developer. Only one statement refers to a badger sett. Naturally a company like Keystone will do its best to help the development company which has hired them.

B.1.As noted above, objectors to this development should, in all fairness, have the right to cross-examine the experts on whose judgement the developers rely. The Keystone report is written by a certain N. Brooke-Smith. Mr Brooke-Smith does not appear to have a website, and in the report there is no mention of his qualifications. I have been unable to discover any publications by him. I wonder whether he has published anything. Surely, the only fair way in which a detached judgement could be made on this case is for Mr Brooke-Smith to justify his recommendations publicly, since it would appear that Mr Beaver’s case for claiming his development will not harm the biodiversity of the Wylye rests on Mr Brooke-Smith’s recommendations, and therefore on his qualifications to make such pronouncements.

Reference is to Keystone Biodiversity Value Assessment Revision 1 of December 2013 (KBVAR 1) B.2.It is worth quoting the Keystone opening statement of their Aims and Objectives:

The primary objective of this report is to demonstrate that the proposed development will not reduce overall biodiversity value of the site. (KBVAR 1 p 1) In other words, their opening statement reassures developers that their Keystones’ Assessment will be as favourable to the developers as possible.

B.3.Their Biodiversity Assessment (KBVAR 1 p 5) acknowledges possible accidental damage to the river during construction. Their recommendation is the creation of a buffer zone 8 metres wide between the building works and the river.

This regulation might seem satisfactory in theory. Is it, however, plausible that during the construction of 35 houses, with all the digging of foundations, all the shifting of materials brought in, and waste thrown out, every building worker on that site will, for the entire period of the construction, avoid dumping spoil, rubble, waste, etc on that narrow stretch of ground? Is it not almost inevitable that when the rain comes, spoil, rubble, or waste, will be washed into the river?

B.4.They refer to creating “enhanced habitat along river bank and ditch banks.” (KBVAR 1 p 8) Some of this will be 8 metres wide, and some 4 metres wide.

Those of us who live on the banks of the Wylye simply do not believe that water voles will come anywhere near a bank which is 8 metres, let alone 4 metres, from a housing estate.

B.5. The instruction continues: Avoidance of pollution through sustainable drainage system … Education of residents through leaflets and display boards and formation of an Ecological Management Committee to ensure that cat predation is minimised. (KBVAR 1 p 8)

To any normal people, this sounds completely insane. 35 families living in fairly close proximity. Some of them on some occasions will throw rubbish into the river. One way or another, washing-up water will find its way into the river, and possibly other more poisonous liquids, like bleach. How will they control their cats and dogs? By definition, cats go where they want to go. So do dogs once they are off the leash.

“Education of residents through leaflets and display boards”

That is certainly not going to stop kids daring each other to cross into the forbidden zone. The nature of a ‘forbidden zone’ is a dare to any adventurous child.

B.6.To preserve the life of the Wylye and its banks, residency in the new estate would have to be confined to mature people with degrees in ecology, and acknowledged status as zoologists. But even then, the ecologists would have household waste, and when they walked around their human smells would discourage the wild life.

C. The River Wylye deserves a more careful investigation than it has had so far. Almost all the chalk streams of Europe are in southern England. There are about a hundred and fifty of them. Four out of these are designated as Special Areas of Conservation, and this part of the Wylye here is one of those four areas. It is extremely precious, a unique place of natural beauty and scientific interest.

C.1.The Wylye, however, is not completely healthy. Only about a quarter of it is reckoned to be in a good state. One of the tests of the river’s quality is the condition of the ranunculus. The presence of this plant is evidence of reasonable river quality.

C.2.The river as it flows through my garden does seem to be of reasonable quality, since the ranunculus flourishes, and there are water voles living in our banks. The property immediately above mine also has the river flowing through it, but is not of such good quality, since much of the ranunculus has died.

C.3. I should note also that in the last two years there have been far fewer mature trout in our part of the river than there have been before. So I am not confident that the river flowing through our garden is as good as it should be.

C.4.We note that regulations controlling sewage systems have tightened. But the fact that they needed tightening is another indication of the risks to the river’s quality.

In other words the quality of the Wylye a few hundred metres from the proposed development is already less than it should be.

C.5,Can a suburban estate of 35 houses possibly avoid further affecting an endangered river? To say that such as estate would have no adverse affect on the river needs much more substantial proof than has been given so far in the confident assertions of Mr Beaver, and the laboriously worded Keystone Assessment document.

Furthermore, it is surely inconceivable that the process of building such a housing estate so near to the river will avoid polluting the river. Those of us who have in our student days worked on building sites know the pressures under which buildings go up, the risks and short cuts which are taken when racing against time. We are entitled to ask whether Mr Beaver and Mr Brooke-Smith have ever themselves worked on a building site. Even if they have a case in theory, their theory is so far removed from the actuality of family houses and the process of building them that the theory becomes revealed as empty words. It might be argued that there are regulations governing the process of building, and that if regulations are broken, builders are fined. But once the damage has been done — by carelessness, by cutting corners, by wrong practice — no amount of fines will put right the harm done to a sensitive site.

Those of us who live on river-banks know how vulnerable such habitats are.

Mr Beaver paints a lyrical picture of otters, water voles, and bats, living in custom-built accommodation near his new housing estate. But if his houses are bought, they will be bought by families. Even if he has provided “A broad ecology zone surrounding his development” children will play in it, and even if the ecology zone is fenced off, the children will find ways of climbing in, and the play will be more exciting for being forbidden, Dogs and cats will inhabit the housing estate, hunt any water voles which ventured near them, and drive away any otters. The most likely wild mammals on the estate to flourish will be rats.

It is not only us. It is our children, our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren, we need to consider. Is it worth taking these very substantial risks of destroying a unique ecology for the construction of one more Warminster suburb?

Yours sincerely,

Leo Aylen