PACKED MEETING ON HEDGEROW CULL
A meeting held at Chirbury Parish Hall last week to discuss a planning application to remove 7 miles of hedgerow in the Chirbury area attracted over 100 people despite being called at short notice.
The meeting called by Heather Kidd, Shropshire Councillor for Chirbury and Worthen Division, and Chirbury Parish Council saw contributions made by the landowner, Mr Fraser Jones, The Ramblers Association, Shropshire Small Mammals group and the Ancient trees volunteer for the Woodlands Trust as well as concerned residents from all over the area. The meeting was chaired by Chairman of Chirbury with Brompton Parish Council, Cllr Gary Holloway.
The application was put in by Mr Jones (of Court Calmore whose main claim to fame is the application for a Super Dairy at Leighton), the new owner of land along the Chirbury to Churchstoke Road, to remove over 11,000 meters of hedgerow. Although the Government is actively paying farmers to plant Hedgerows (Under the Land Stewardship Scheme) this application seeks to take advantage of a gap in the 1997 Hedgerow Regulations to turn this whole are into one massive prairie like field. Mr Jones said this would enable him to use his 30m boom spraying machine.
Amongst the points made in the meeting were:
l A tree specialist had identified a number of ancient trees in the hedgerows including one old oak with a 7m girth.
l Eight species of birds of conservation concern nested in or used these hedgerows including Barn Owl and Yellowhammer (both red listed)
l The area may be a ‘hotspot’ for the rare Hazel Dormouse.
l An 1843 map confirmed the current layout as an ‘Ancient Hedgerow’ as defined by the regulations.
l There are areas of mediaeval ‘ridge and furrow’ in several of the fields.
Since the meeting the Council has confirmed that some of these Hedgerows have already a preservation order in place enacted by South Shropshire District Council.
A team of ecologists from Shropshire Council will be examining the area in the near future.
Cllr Heather Kidd said “In the 21st century the wholesale destruction of such habitat and of our traditional landscape is wholly unacceptable. This would change our treasured landscape forever and eave it looking more like Wyoming than the Welsh borders.
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