The fields south of the hospital are flooded for the best of the three winter months, and this is without development on them, meaning that the plants that currently live on the land will help in soaking some of the rainwater. The flooding creates a pond that is big and deep enough for many of the birds that live in the wetland of Hobsons park bird reserve to move to this part of the fields and swim around in the waters that collect here.

Developing on this land means having the same problems if not more than the new AstraZeneca DISC building on Francis Crick avenue has had - with flooding of the basements and sinking of the building, impacting on the time for delivery of a new research building and leading to financial losses and the usage of more building material (substitution of many broken parts, including big glass windows), which we know is responsible for around 7-8% of CO2 emission globally - hence, yet another environmental disaster.

Many houses in the Ninewells development already have problems in heavy rains, with gardens being flooded and water reaching up to 1 inch against patio doors at the peak of rainfalls. The system for collecting rainwater is insufficient for the current development, considering that the playground is constantly flooded in the winter and has created still unresolved issues between the residents and the developers. The piece of land currently proposed for development is below the level of Ninewells and is indeed at the bottom of a clay hill, meaning that waters run down the hill to collect here. This is not a 1/100 years event as claimed by some, but something that happens every year during the winter months - and I have records of this and am aware that these records have been shared with Councillor Katie Thornburrow.

In addition to this, the fields south of Ninewells are a site of natural diversity, with 93 bird species recorded over the last 10 years, of which 20 red list birds and 27 amber list birds. We cannot afford to be complacent with nature, species that we consider abundant now may be extinct soon because of overdevelopment. Development on this piece of land will impoverish the environment of some natural niches where some endangered birds species are thriving.

The fields are also currently a site where residents enjoy their time walking and being in contact with nature, something that cannot be dismissed when considering that we all needed more outside space in the COVID19 pandemic, which is certainly not the last one coming our way. Humanity needs nature to stay sane.