This site is adjacent to, and may include, areas of important ancient woodland at Worting Wood and Wootton Copse. We are concerned that no mention is made of suitable protection, including buffer zones, for this irreplaceable habitat.
The Woodland Trust objects to ancient woodland areas being included in sites allocated as suitable for development. Areas of natural woodland, in particular ancient woodland, are vulnerable to pollution, encroachment from development, and habitat fragmentation. It is important that any development is located and designed to avoid damaging ancient woodland, providing buffers for designated sites and protecting connectivity between wildlife habitats. Further information is available in the Trust’s Planners’ Manual for ancient woodland.
We ask that either this site is removed from the plan, or that the site boundaries are redrawn to exclude the ancient woodland, in line with NPPF paragraph 186c, which states: c) development resulting in the loss or deterioration of irreplaceable habitats (such as ancient woodland and ancient or veteran trees) should be refused, unless there are wholly exceptional reasons and a suitable compensation strategy exists. Exceptional reasons refers to nationally-significant infrastructure projects, not housing developments.
Whether the ancient woodland is within or outside the development site, we recommend a precautionary buffer of 50m unless it can be demonstrated that a smaller buffer would suffice: this buffer can be used for natural woodland regeneration, contributing to biodiversity net gain and/or providing accessible natural green space for local residents.
We suggest rewording point I) to make explicit the need to protect ancient woodland and to acknowledge that where irreplaceable habitats are lost, there can be no possibility of biodiversity net gain.
l) Avoid or mitigate the direct and indirect adverse impacts on key species and habitats, including areas of ancient woodland, rare arable flora and Sites of Importance for Nature Conservation within and adjacent to the site. Loss or harm to irreplaceable habitats must be avoided in order to ensure at least a 10% net gain in biodiversity, and mitigation and compensation for other habitat loss will be required. Opportunities will be taken to secure the creation and management of linkages between existing woodlands;
We recognise the intense pressure to identify and bring forward new sites for housing and employment uses. This pressure makes it all the more important that vital protections for ancient woodland and veteran trees are upheld.