Having spent some time surveying the trees at Hinkley & lobbying West Somerset District Council to grant an Emergency Tree Preservation Order (TPO), I'm really pleased this morning as I've just received an e-mail from WSDC saying that after a having an arboriculturalist visit the site, that we've won a TPO for all of the trees in this copse!
I'm actually elated, it is so important that EDF don't get to completely decimate this site without planning permission, There are at least a dozen notable/veteran Oaks in this copse (the oldest of which is pictured above) as well as numerous other trees. I particularly focussed on the Oaks because of the very significant contribution Oaks make to biodiversity. This is evident in the fact that the trees in this copse are also very significant because they provide foraging grounds for Bats form the nearby Quantock hills an area of AONB.
This brings to me to another point - namely that that ecosystems, their boundaries and interactions do not respect the arbitrary political boundaries of humans, it's all well & good for EDF to draw an arbitrary boundary around a parcel of land that they claim ownership of, and for them to share this information with humans - just how are they going to communicate these boundaries to the rest of the species that are reliant on this land?
Environmental statements indicate that a potential developer is supposed to also consider the interactions between the site and the wider context it is located in. The reality is that they frequently fail to adequately take account of the species within their sites, let alone outside the site boundaries.
So for now I will take comfort that these trees have been afforded at least some legal protection for now...
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