St. Nicholas Church and surrounding areas

This morning I had a routine visit to my local patch site centred on St. Nicholas Church .... see here.

What I saw and experienced left me with a great deal of concern and anger and which prompted an immediate e-mail to Josh Childs, the the Parks and Countryside Biodiversity Officer for Basildon Council.

Hi Josh

I hope that you are well.

I contacted you back in July 2022 to just say “hello” following the article about your good self in the summer edition of “Basildon – Our Borough”.

I hope that you don’t mind me contacting you again regarding an issue that has caused me a great deal of concern and anger today. You seemed an obvious starting point given your role as the Parks and Countryside Biodiversity Officer for Basildon Council.

If you can investigate the following for me or point me in the direction of who I should contact, I would be very grateful. I would like to know who is responsible and I would like an explanation.

This morning, I had another walk around one of my local patch sites, namely the one adjacent to where I live and centred on St. Nicholas Church in Laindon.

I immediately noticed that a lot of the scrub, hedges and young trees have been cleared from the area that runs down from the church car park to St. Nicholas Lane.

I then saw active clearance of the same from the area the other side of Church Hill which again leads down from the church and the top of the hill to St. Nicholas Lane.

I then came across a huge area that has been cleared to the south of Laindon Park School and another area to the west of Czarina Rise that then runs parallel to St. Nicholas Lane. Along the footpath in this latter area, several trees have been marked in pink so doubtless they are going to be chopped down too.

As I write this, I can still hear chainsaws and a bulldozer from my flat!

This is a wanton destruction of a valuable wildlife habitat for no apparent reason as far as I can see. No health and safety risks. No blocked access. Nothing to warrant this.

Apart from the devastation of these areas as wildlife habitats, no effort at all has been made to properly clear them. There are trip hazards everywhere due to the volume of vegetation, twigs, branches, etc. plus a lot of plastic, bottles, tyres and all sorts of other rubbish. All that has just been left in place. The whole area is an appalling and unsightly mess.

I have watched and recorded wildlife around St. Nicholas Church for many years and particularly intensively since the first Covid-19 lockdown. I have recorded 60 species of birds, 7 species of mammal, 22 species of butterflies, 9 species of dragonfly/damselfly and 1 reptile species. It is a wildlife oasis in a heavily urbanised area, important in its own right and important for me as an area to enjoy the outdoors.

The habitat that has been destroyed will have previously provided breeding locations for many resident birds including Common Buzzards, Sparrowhawks, Green Woodpecker, Great Spotted Woodpecker and many more, breeding locations for summer visitors which will be back soon such as Blackcap, Chiffchaff and Common Whitethroat, refuges for winter visitors such as Redwing and breeding sites or refuges for mammals such as Red Fox, Badger, Reeves’ Muntjac and the smaller voles and mice.

During my time visiting this area, I have seen the loss of nesting Common Swifts and roosting Pipistrelles from the tower of St. Nicholas Church following the so-called restoration a few years ago. Within the last 2 years or so, I have failed to see any of the Badgers that I used to watch regularly around St. Nicholas Church following the so-called improvements to the perimeter of the car park. I have seen the massive clearance of scrub, hedges and young trees between the western boundary of the cemetery and Pound Lane for residential development.

Basildon Council and others obviously have the right, within the law, to do what they want on land owned by them and the area around St. Nicholas Church is unfortunately not designated as a Local Nature Reserve unlike Noak Bridge Nature Reserve that I also visit.

However, surely landowners need to understand that the natural environment needs an opportunity to restore and rewild itself rather than being destroyed so wantonly. This is so important given the worsening global climate emergency and the biodiversity crisis with the UK being one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world. In other words, think global, act local. Basildon needs to make its contribution and a positive one unlike this destruction.

As an aside, I should in fairness note one small positive contribution …. the planting of tree saplings along a small stretch of St. Nicholas Lane and all protected by bio-degradable tree guards rather than the plastic ones. Hopefully, Basildon Council will also leave some of the verges around the Borough unmown this coming spring and summer as they did last year and which provided a valuable habitat for pollinating and other insects.

Here are some of the photos that I took at various locations this morning ….

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/14rlJjgCwcnL-NfNMLXAEoDMrc_1Wtlxp?usp=sharing

My apologies for the rant that has initially been directed at you but hopefully you will understand my concern and anger at what has occurred and what is still going on today …. I can still hear chainsaws and a bulldozer!

As I have said, if you can investigate for me or point me in the direction of who I should contact to make my representations and register my complaint, I would be very grateful.

Many thanks.

Richard

I await a response with more than a passing interest!

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