For the last ten years I have been conducting ecological surveys of one square kilometre of green belt which includes the area of major change. The fields I study are bounded by the Biomedical Campus, the Nine Wells development, Babraham Road, Granham’s Road and the railway line. I attach a copy of my interim report for 2021.
At first sight the area I study may appear unlikely to support high levels of biodiversity. However, in practice it is home to remarkable populations of red-listed farmland bird species of high conservation concern, as well as the equally endangered water voles. There are also good numbers of brown hare and a range of other birds, mammals, arable plants, butterflies, dragonflies and other invertebrates. The fields affected by S/CBC/A and S/CBC/E2 all form crucial parts of the wider ecosystem.
Key species affected include grey partridge, which declined by 93% between 1970 and 2018 and are now considered ‘vulnerable to extinction’ in the UK; corn bunting and yellow wagtail which declined respectively by 89% and 68% and are now considered ‘near threatened’ meaning that they are likely to become at high risk of extinction in the UK in the near future. The fields affected by S/CBC/A were home this year to five pairs of grey partridge, four corn bunting territories and three pairs of yellow wagtail.
For several reasons which I discuss in the attached detailed submission it is entirely unrealistic to expect Policy S/CBC, as it stands, to achieve the minimum required 20% biodiversity net gain of habitat. Even if offsite habitats were proposed that might benefit farmland birds elsewhere these would not justify losses of sedentary farmland bird species from their existing range.
If Policy S/CBC is genuinely essential to the future of the City and South Cambridgeshire, and sufficiently exceptional to justify the release of green belt, a separate mitigation or compensation package would be required for the farmland birds in order to ‘take account of particular species in a locality that give habitats their local distinctiveness’ (Defra). This would mean improving the arable habitat across Granham’s Road land to provide a refuge for the displaced wildlife as the species concerned are not readily mobile. In the attached detailed submission I propose ways in which this might be achieved – however, habitat creation is always harder work than maintaining existing habitat and retaining the existing fields would be a less risky option.
I attach both more a more detailed submission and my interim report for 2021 of the area I survey.