How much does it cost to NOT build a cycle race track on top of a Bird Reserve?

So how much did Derby City Council actually spend trying to build an outdoor cycle race track on top of The Sanctuary Bird Reserve and LNR at Pride Park?  The skylark, the snipe and the wheatear whose habitat was bulldozed away earlier this year probably don't care. But today we found out  it was £147,000. (see this Derby Telegraph article)

Bulldozed open mosaic grassland habitat at The Sanctuary LNR
with the new £27m Velodrome. 

It would be a shame - but not a surprise - if an attempt is made to place blame for this waste of resources at the door of the conservationists. It was we who tried first to work with the Council in 2011 to find an effective compromise solution, and then who rallied together over the last three years to fight and defend this designated Local Nature Reserve from 40% loss or disturbance. It was and still is city's first Bird Reserve, and was opened in 2004 by the Secretary of State for the Environment, no less! Watch her giving her speech here)

But it is a shame that so much local taxpayers' money was wasted - and so much damage done - on pushing through a scheme that quite seriously flouted many of Derby City Council's own planning policies, management plans, and even National Planning Policy guidelines. We knew it was wrong - even their own planning policy staff advised them it was wrong. And even the High Court felt there was a case to answer. So when Derbyshire Wildlife Trust bravely took out an injunction and a date was set for a judicial review of how the process had been handled, our coalition knew we stood a good chance of having the planning permission rescinded that the Council had managed to grant itself. But then the Council suddenly announced that the costs of the scheme were already too high, and pulled out, blaming the inevitable delays on costs rising even further. So the impending legal action was withdrawn, and the injunction lifted.

To some extent, this waste of money is also the fault of Sport England and British Cycling who were set to grant aid the cycle circuit costs. Their promise of funds must have been a great temptation to those senior figures at Derby Council who were pushing through the adjacent velodrome development (see top picture). Had these national funding bodies taken their responsibilities more seriously, they would have asked a simple pre-application question: 

"ARE THERE ANY BIODIVERSITY FEATURES, SITE DESIGNATIONS OR OTHER MATERIAL CONSIDERATIONS WHICH MIGHT BE AFFECTED BY US FUNDING YOUR SPORTING DEVELOPMENT?" 

Two minutes to fill in a form, and they  would have realised straight away that "YES" there would be a planning problem, and this sorry saga would not have happened the way it did. Had advice from Derby City Council's own planning officers and policy advisors also been heeded (and we know it was given) we would not be where we are today, either. 

But we are where we are. It cost £147,000 to get here, and a large part of The Sanctuary LNR has been bulldozed into massive heaps of topsoil  and rubble that obstruct the views across the reserve, and do nothing in return by way of offering future habitat. The flat open mosaic habitat used by ground-dwelling birds has gone. They need wide open spaces to feel secure. It won't come back until the mounds are bulldozed back down and leveled off. We really do need Derby City Council to undertake to do this quickly (it will be cheaper for them whilst there are men and machinery at the adjacent velodrome site, too). Our coalition of conservation groups and their members are really keen now to help the Council manage the LNR into the future. We'd be happy to organise litter picks around the outside, or run birdwatching days for the public and velodrome users to see the Little Ringed Plover chicks or the nesting Sand Martins and Lapwing. We'd help out with conservation days to meet the council's recently published management plan objectives for this amazing little bird reserve. And we'd love them to fix the fencing to keep out the intruders on what still remains a 'contaminated site').

We have written to the Council Leadership three times in recent months to offer our help and support. It is disappointing not getting any reply - but the offer stands. We know Natural England is growing concerned to learn  when the damage to the LNR will be restored. And all those people who petitioned, campaigned, lobbied, and twice demonstrated outside the Council House are really keen to know, too.  We all want The Sanctuary go forth as a viable, valuable resource for biodiversity in this city and to work with the relevant people to help make this happen..  

An End of Life Pathway

           

They stole you away this morning, those carers
They said that you were in pain.
They asked you if you were suffering
They asked you again and again.

They called it an 'end of life pathway', those nurses
But the rush to use it was wrong.
I begged them last night to inform me
As I needed to share one last song.

They called me to say what they wanted, those carers
To resolve your unease and distress.
Whilst I was conversing with doctors
They acted on what they thought best.

By the time that they reached me, those nurses
Ten minutes had passed and they said
That I was engaged and you were distressed;
They’d given you morphine in bed.

It did just what they wanted, those needles
They pacified you there in your bed
The things that I wanted to tell you
Will now stay forever unsaid.

I wanted a last chance to tell you, my mother
That I loved you from childhood to man
But they stole that last chance from before me
And now there’s no way that I can.

So lie there in peace, my dear mother
Befuddled, be-drugged and so frail
You know just how much that I love you
I am here for the end of your tale.


(Mum died the next morning at 8am)

I lived just 5 minutes drive away from Mum's care home. The day prior to her death I had explicitly asked the matron in charge to contact me if they felt that application of an 'end of life pathway' was necessary. (I had been concerned they seemed overly keen to apply it.) The following morning I was actually on my mobile phone to her doctors' surgery to find out more about the medication involved and to express my worries to them that the care home seemed rather "gung ho" in wanting to apply the pathway. It was at that precise moment that the care home  tried to ring my mobile. (They did not bother trying my landline). They reached me 10 minutes later, but by then they had already administered the necessary medication. I arrived at her home just four minutes later, but never managed to speak with Mum again. I knew she had been fading for days, but I had wanted to speak with her one last time whilst she was still compos mentis. I stayed in her room for the next 24 hrs, and wrote the words above some hours before she finally let go of life. Whilst maintaining my support for the concept of legal euthanasia, I felt her life was ended without sufficient consultation. She had never been in severe pain, although for some months had suffered many indignities that old age and immobility had forced upon her, despite a an otherwise sound and caring regime at her nursing home.

Open Letter to Dame Margaret Beckett MP - The Sanctuary Bird Reserve

An Open Letter to Margaret Beckett MP  - The Sanctuary Local Nature Reserve

Dear Mrs Beckett

Letter to Margaret Beckett MP
 from Derby City Council

In June 2011 you received a written promise from Paul Robinson, Strategic Director for Neighbourhoods at Derby City Council. He assured you the Sanctuary Bird Reserve, which you opened as Secretary of State for the Environment in 2004, would not be harmed by development of  a multi user sports arena (velodrome) at Pride Park. He said “we do not require any of The Sanctuary land”.  We now know this not to be true.

Here is a video of your 2004 opening speech alongside the Mayor of Derby in 2004.     
In the video you publicly praise Derby Council’s integrated approach to planning, its forethought and imagination in creating The Sanctuary Bird Reserve, and for protecting the declining habitat of the Skylark, for which your Department then had a responsibility.

May I invite you now to publicly deplore Derby Council’s current attempt to push through a planning application to build a mile-long pay-to-race cycle track on top of the very open mosaic grassland habitat for skylarks and wheatear and reed bunting that The Sanctuary was intended to protect?

I understand Council Leader Paul Bayliss has written to all the Planning Committee members to voice his support for the proposals;  so may I invite you to inform them of your own opinion on this matter? We trust the chair of the Planning Committee, who went to the House of Commons in 2005 to accept a ‘Green Apple’ award for The Sanctuary Bird Reserve on behalf of Derby City Council will not be swayed by her Leader’s remarks, or his lack of concern for biodiversity or Local Plan policies.

Everyone in Derby knows there is a perfectly adequate alternative cycle circuit location just 1.8 miles away, around the new athletics track at Derby Moorways.

Derby Moorways Athletics Track
- plenty of room for a 1.2km closed cycle racing circuit!

The muddy tracks were made by a recent National cyclocross racing
event, organised by, errm, British Cycling.

The Moorways Stadium site “scored highest against the evaluation criteria”  in an independent 2009 report, commissioned by Derby Council, but is now unreasonably dismissed as unsuitable in current planning application documents.  We do know from those documents that British Cycling is only willing to spend lottery/government money if it can build on top of The Sanctuary. Experts have shown Derby's figures of damage to be an under-estimate, and that 46% of the LNR will either be lost or so badly disturbed that skylarks and other birds would abandon it - many of them UK Priority BAP S

So a unique bird reserve is potentially set to become the first Local Nature Reserve in England to be developed and damaged in this appalling way by an Authority that previously declared the site of the highest importance for nature and for people, and which was opened to much acclaim by you.

Yet in a little over a year's time there will be a new regional outdoor cycle racing circuit built just 15 miles away at Harvey Haddon Sports Complex near Nottingham, also with British Cycling funding.

At the 11^th hour another Local Wildlife Site called Alvaston Scrub (DE053) has been offered as compensation for loss of bird habitat. As well as being totally inappropriate land to offer in compensation, existing leisure and recreation routes run right through it, and no ecological evidence or funding offer has been submitted to show how scrubland could be modified to create equivalent undisturbed habitat needed by the rare bird assemblages found on the open mosaic habitat, now about to be lost or disturbed by cycle racing and mountain biking at The Sanctuary.

The national precedent being set of a Local Nature Reserve being unnecessarily built upon, and thus having to be de-declared as an LNR has led wildlife broadcaster Chris Packham to call it ‘a vile act of wanton vandalism’. [worth reading the cylists' comments on this link]

This is a far cry from your speech in 2004 when you described The Sanctuary Bird Reserve as ‘a feather in the cap of the city of Derby’.

Will you prevail upon Derby’s Planning Committee members to consider which statement they believe to be the most accurate and, unlike Cllr Bayliss, to consider the alternative location as the best option for Derby and for urban biodiversity?

- ENDS - 

This letter was sent 29th January 2014, and cc-ed to all nine members of Derby's Planning Committee.

Related blog posts:  

Will you be riding rough-shod over nature? 20 Jan 2012

A Sanctuary - but for how long? 23 May 2011(First open letter to Dame Margaraet Beckett MP)

Store Cards - just a one way flow of information?

Image: Martin Bodman (Wikimedia Commons)

Earlier this week Tesco stores issued a food recall of their own brand of ice-cream cones because painkillers were found in them. You can read the national news story here or here.

But I'm sure you already knew this, because doesn't everyone check the Trading Standards Institute's website everyday for product recalls like this one?

No, I didn't think so. TESCO - and no doubt all the other big corporations - rely on us finding out somehow via newspapers, or in-store notices tucked away somewhere.

But it struck me we hear so much about our exact shopping habits being tracked by the use of our loyalty cards that here was the perfect reverse use of that data. Surely stores like TESCO uses would use all that data amassed from their ClubCard to tell shoppers of the dangers of eating contaminated product. After all, they know the names of everyone who buys a product with a store card. Wouldn't they write or email them all?

Well, that's what I assumed. So I thought I'd use Twitter to ask if anyone knew if this is, indeed, what happens when a food product is found to be seriously contaminated.

Well, @TESCO heard me and kindly replied, but they rather appeared to have missed the point. So I asked again, but have so far received no response.

It's a shame. We give them so much of our shopping data with which to build their profits. You'd think when it came to a contaminated and potentially dangerous own-brand product they'd think it appropriate to contact their loyal ClubCard users to warn them of the risk.
Well, wouldn't you?

Sounds like a 'No'.

Just to clarify, I didn't buy Tesco's contaminated Ice-cream
cones with my ClubCard. But had I done so,
would they have contacted me? Do anyone?

British Gas - a shocking bill

After more than 25 years as a British Gas customer, I finally decided last month to leave for a cheaper and greener supplier, OvoEnergy.  The process seemed to be going really smoothly until I received my final electricity statement a few days ago.

It was good news in a way. You see, I'd been slightly overpaying every month and my account was almost £73 in credit. I was due a refund. (Hooray!) Somewhere around £62 it seemed. But then I looked again at the statement from British Gas.

"Your adjustments"  debit: £50.13  

So you'll only get £12.70 from us. (Booo!)

British Gas adds on a trumped-up, five-year old charge of £50 for work that was never done

But hold on. I was on a standard tariff, dual fuel. There are no fees for cancelling any contract, because I simply don't have one. I was confused; where did this £50.13p charge come from?

A chat to their call centre staff revealed that I wasn't alone in being confused; they simply couldn't tell me, either, "We'll have to refer it upwards", the man said. "We'll get back to you with an answer on Monday."

Monday came and went, so on Tuesday I rang again and repeated my question. It turned out that back in 2007 I'd enquired (note the word "enquired") about the cost of changing  my dual rate meter (i.e. economy 7) to a single  rate meter. They said they had overlooked billing me for changing the meter,  "so we'd  like it now, before you leave us, please!"

Not only is it shocking to think that British Gas can dredge up an unpaid bill from five years ago, it's utterly appalling that they try it on because my electricity meter was never changed. The work was never done. It was just an enquiry I made in 2007. Yes, my meter did eventually get changed some years later, but at British Gas' request, and when the engineer turned up to do the replacement, he only had a single rate meter with him. I didn't realise this until it had been installed.  But I've been happy with it; the costs have been about the same.

But I'm not at all happy at British Gas trying it on by trumping up an unpaid bill for work that was never done. And to add on a fake 5-year old fee just as I am leaving them seems petty in the extreme. OK, they have agreed to delete the "adjustment" and reimburse me the full amount I overpaid. But next time you hear British Gas offering to "Fix Your Prices"  you'll know just what that could mean!

 And if that's not a good reason to change supplier, I don't know what is.

What British Gas promises it will do for you!

Addendum: After receiving five more paper printouts of my "final bill", I finally received a cheque for £62.83 - but it was made out, not to the person who's been paying the bills for the last 25 years, but to my wife!

PlantTracker - Invasive Plants go Mobile

A brilliant little mobile phone application was launched earlier this year which lets anyone with a smartphone collect and submit records of any of fourteen of the most invasive plant species across Britain. I gave it a try out recently, and  would thoroughly recommend it to anyone interesting in contributing to efforts to control  the spread of damaging alien plants. No great expertise is needed  - just a willingness to get out and about with your mobile nphone.

Developed at Bristol University, PlantTracker can be downloaded for free and installed on any smartphone or iPhone. Visit the website at http://planttracker.naturelocator.org to get the phone app. or to view the records already submitted.

Himalayan Balsam now chokes many
UK waterways. (Photo: GBNNSS)

All users need do is simply photograph the plant with their phone, then select one of three keywords to describe the size of the colony. Location coordinates are determined automatically by the phone network, but mobiles with GPS give much greater accuracy. Hit ‘Send’ to upload your record to a mapping website, which appear only after each has been checked by validators. Mine have sometimes appeared in less than 30 minutes! And they're dead accurate on the map.

It's no problem if you're in an area without mobile phone coverage. You can store your pictures and coordinates to be sent later.

Helpfully, the phone app contains a library of information and some great images to aid identification in the field before records are submitted. The species included are:

• Japanese Knotweed
• Himalayan Balsam
• Orange Balsam
• Water Fern
• New Zealand Pygmyweed
• Parrot’s Feather
• Giant Hogweed
• Floating Pennywort
• Creeping Water-primrose
• Piri-Piri Burr
• American Skunk Cabbage,
• Monkey Flower
• Curly Waterweed



Screenshot of the PlantTracker website showing
all Japanese Knotweed records received.

• Rhododendron.

The website has its own blog, giving users feedback on developments and achievements. For example, when the project received its first verified record of Floating Pennywort (shown below) from a London park, the Environment Agency alerted the managers of the site where it had been discovered, and control measures were put into effect immediately to eradicate it. As you can see from the photo, it really is a plant with an invasive streak.

The website offers standard mapping as well as  Google’s satellite mapping, but not Streetview, which is a shame. PlantTracker can certainly help local groups working with INNS (Invasive Non-Native Species), and any scheme organisers needing full access to the data can contact the PlantTracker team for this.  Helpfully, users can also upload invasive plant records and photos direct from the website.

Surprisingly, PlantTracker doesn't yet allow recorders to be 'pre-approved' after submitting sufficient records of each species. So every report needs an accompanying photograph. I think this might discourage its use for more intensive local recording of particular species, as taking yet another and then another photograph of Himalayan Balsam is eventually going to be seen as a bit of a pain.

Floating Pennywort Hydrocotyle ranunculoides
(credit: GBNNSS)

My main criticism of PlantTracker is that location coordinates are displayed as Latitude and Longitude, whereas conversion to OSGB grid references would have been very helpful for local recorders. As someone who has operated a Biological Records Centre for over 20 years, I can say from experience that we tended to ignore records provided with Lat/Long unless it was something really special. The effort needed to convert each record is just not worthwhile. But I'd have thought that a little algorithm in the programme itself could have provided that conversion. I did like the feature to display all uploaded records. Now, had it displayed the National Grid Reference and the date, that would have been brilliant. That said, I do hope LatLong informaiotn will also be retained - it's great to be able to cut and paste it straight to Google Maps and be taken to the location.

At the  moment the amount of validated records presented on the online maps is nowhere near the amount of data available to us locally. But that's not the point. The point is that this app will, in time, generate additional records, encourage new recorders, and maybe generate a new wave of volunteers willing to help record and take action to remove these invasive species from our waterways and other habitats.

And if I were to offer one other minor criticism, I'd say it would be nice to be able to zoom in on the results page of the PlantTracker website to an area of interest and then to be able to change the species being mapped, rather than having to start afresh and zoom in all over again for each individual species.

All in all, PlantTracker is a superb and simple phone app. Both it and the related website are incredibly easy to use. No doubt future modifications will make them even more effective. The PlantTracker project is a collaboration between the Environment Agency, the NatureLocator team at Bristol University and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology.

It can be downloaded free from the iTunes store or Android Market.


Footnote:
If you are interested in contributing to efforts to control invasive species in your area, contact your local Wildlife Trust, Biological Records Centre, National Park Authority, or check out the GBNNS website for information on the increasing number of formal 'Local Action Groups' being set up around the country to try to control these alien invaders. 
This is an expanded version of an article written for Derbyshire Biodiversity Newsletter Vol 8 Issue 2 

This review was based on the Android version of PlantTracker ver 1.2.1 running on an HTC Desire HD

Nov 7th: Since this review was posted, I've had contact with Dave Kilbey from the team at PlantTracker. He tells me that OSGB grid references will be added in an update next spring (do keep the Lat/Long display on the database, too, guys). The pre-approving of recorders for particularly common species may be made more obvious - it does actually happen at the moment behind the scenes, but users don't know see it. A pat on the back for being appreciated as a competent recorder would go down well with most users, I'm sure.  I've even suggested that there could also be opportunities for getting greater involvement from the userbase by making the app a bit more like Foursquare, for examle. Users of PlantTracker could win 'badges' for becoming an 'approved' recorder, or for submitting set numbers of records, or for reporting more than one species, or for recording in a certain number of regions, whether they be countries, counties or 10km squares. Perhaps it's a case of 'watch this space'

Climber - a mountain poem

Climber

We came down off that hill in darkness, the three of us, 

carrying our burdens upon our backs
 and in our hearts. 

We started out in joyous mood that morning, 
exalted by the day’s beginning; 

by mountains to be climbed and miles walked, 

called by sharp frosts and brilliant sun 

to the very top of this frozen world. 

Our world; a world of naked rock, 
of snow and calling ravens. 

Our world; a world of gaily painted ropes, 
of boots and clanking axes. 

Our world; a world of white and black, 
of welcome and betrayal. 

 And so it was we journeyed upwards into this kingdom, 

our lives connected by purpose and by rope, 

each step freeing us from those cities in which we worked. 

 Upwards we journeyed, at times moving together, 

at times living alone. 

Knowing we are watched, we watched only for ourselves 

and trusted in our fellows. 

And below our feet: 

space 

that infinity;
the valley floor so distant, 

yet always just a slip away. 

 A slip? What term is this? 

A careless move, a moment's inattention? 

One slip
and this welcome world turns traitor to invaders. 

 And so it happened when least expected. 

One man, content in his existence and his challenge, 

knowing he was safe, was unsafe. 

A slip? Who can say? 

Who amongst us can say what happened 

or comprehend the fact that one of us is dead? 

A slip indeed, held at last by rope 

but with life’s thread already broken. 

 We came down off that hill in darkness, the three of us, 

carrying our burdens upon our backs
 and in our hearts.


N Moyes 1987

These words were dedicated to Steve Caswell who died in 1994 in a tragic mountaineering accident in the shadow of Mont Blanc long after I wrote these words. They are also dedicated to his wife, Pam, who managed to survive that incident, but whose life and those of her family were forever changed by it. She passed away peacefully in September 2012 and was cremated today. Appreciating the importance of helicopter rescue, Pam used to raise money for her local service, the Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance to which you can donate here. Childcare commitments mean I couldn't attend her funeral service, so have donated the equivalent of my travel costs to this Air Ambulance Service instead. 

 The poem - if you can call it that - was inspired by my own deep love of the mountains, and especially by the steep, snow-filled gullies of Glencoe in Scotland where I learnt to ice-climb. (The photo used is unrelated to the people or places referred to above.)