GNS News MARCH 2012 Gloucestershire Naturalists’ Society www.glosnats.org Letter from the Chair, November 2012 Contents Dear Fellow Members t/c Contents 2 With best wishes, Mike Smart Letter from the Chair 3 t/c Wildlife Recording Information Sheet 22-25 Diary 26 Society Officers and contacts 23 Copy Deadline for next issue: 1st February 2013 Send items to the Editor: Kate Kibble, 5 Elliott Place, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, GL51 3NH. Email:
[email protected] Front cover photo: Wild boar in the Forest of Dean ©Andrew Bluett GNS News MARCH 2013 2 3 GNS News MARCH 2013 Cinderford Northern Quarter – Sustainable Development or Destructive White Elephant? One of the most controversial development proposals for the Forest of Dean area in many years concerns the Cinderford Northern Quarter (CNQ). The “Northern Quarter” is an area of land at the northern end of the Cinderford Linear Park, roughly bounded by the A4136 to the north, A4151 Steam Mills Road to the east, Broadmoor Road and the Forest Vale Industrial Estate to the south and forested land to the west, as shown on the maps. The proposal for CNQ includes the provision of infrastructure, facilities and buildings for use and support of housing, employment, tourism and education, all to be landscaped into the environment in an aesthetically pleasing manner. The intention is to attract £100m of investment as a joint venture between Forest of Dean District Council and the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA). In July 2012 it was announced that The Cinderford Investment Prospectus “…outlines plans for 1,000 new jobs, 400 homes, a college and new businesses in the town’s Northern Quarter.