WADING BIRDS SET TO BENEFIT FROM NEW NATURE RESERVE ON OUTSKIRTS OF GRIMSBY

BUT CAUTION SOUNDED BY HUMBERSIDE AIRPORT ON BIRD STRIKE RISK

                                                         

The lagoons are likely to be a magnet for black-tailed godwit

A PROPOSED new nature reserve for the South Bank of the Humber Estuary has today been given the planning green light.

 

North East Lincolnshire.has earmarked up £6.84-million for the project which will involve creation of lagoons, ponds and other habitat on land off South Marsh Road in Stallingborough, near Grimsby.

 

There will also be a purpose-built hide.

 

The approximate breakdown is:

*   Up to £4.56-million for land acquisition - either purchased outright or leased for 25 years

*    £1.39-million to create appropriate habitat

*     £894,000 for ongoing management

It is understood that the reserve, to be known as Cress Marsh, will consist of four different sites so as to provide diversity for waders - including curlew, redshank, lapwing and golden plover - ducks and geese.

 

The council is required to create the reserve to provide mitigation for habitat which will be lost during development of industrial land and provision of infrastructure as part of its South Humber Gateway employment initiative.

 

This part of the Humber Estuary is annually thought to provide feeding habitat for at least 175,000 birds - chiefly waders and wildfowl.

 

Despite the pressure on local authority budgets, NELC is confident that - aided by grants -  it has the resources to ensure the reserve is appropriately and effectively managed once it has been created. Contractors will be engaged to carry out this work.

 

Ensuring the authority meets its responsibilities will be Natural England who have signed off the project as have partner-organisations such as sisters-councils, the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust, the RSPB and the Greater Lincolnshire Nature Partnership.

 

The RSPB has insisted that there must be guarantees that mitigation measures will be in perpetuity and not allowed to lapse at the expiry of 25-year leases which landowners might not wish to renew.

 

What access, if any, the public, including birders, will have to the site has yet to be determined.

The application was originally submitted in late-January, but, because of hitches, was not determined until this month.

 

The scheme did not go before councillors for debate, but was determined by case officers under delegated decision-making powers.

 

Officials at Humberside Airport have asked to be kept updated as the site is located just within its 13km runway "bird zone".

 

It is keen to discuss “wildlife monitoring processes” in order to reduce the risk of bird strikes.

Rarities such as this pectoral sandpiper could also drop in

JAPANESE COMPANIES TAKE STAKE IN GIANT OFFSHORE WINDFARM PROJECT

TWO Japanese energy companies have taken a stake - jointly worth almost £1-billion - in the Triton Knoll windfarm project off the Lincolnshire Coast.

German renewables company  Innogy this week announced plans to sell 41 per cent to Electric Power Development, better known as J-Power, (25 per cent) and Kansai Electric Power (16 per cent).

Both Japanese companies are keen to expand beyond their domestic markets.

Innogy will retain the majority stake (59 per cent).

Construction on the windfarm is set to start at the end of next year.

THE PROBLEM WITH WINDFARMS

                                           

WHAT moral duty, if any, do we have to safeguard the birds and other wildlife of our oceans?

This is one of the questions posed in a study by journalist Jim Wright.

In A Fault To Nature, his particular focus is on the threat posed to hundreds of thousands of birds by the proliferation of offshore wind farms in UK waters, such as the southern North Sea and beyond.

He acknowledges that wind energy is helping to revitalise the economy of coastal towns such as Grimsby but claims this is likely to be coming at the expense of marine species.

These include puffins, shearwaters, terns and divers  which are increasingly being displaced from longstanding maritime habitat because of their aversion to the ‘invasion’ of turbines which, to them, are alien structures.

Meanwhile night-migrating songbirds such as nightingales, warblers and members of the thrush family are at risk of fatal collisions, especially when conditions are misty or rainy.

For reasons that are not clear, raptors are particularly vulnerable, and there are numerous fatality records involving such species as sea eagle, osprey and red kite.

The unenviable record for the largest recorded number of multiple bird kills on a single night is thought to be held by an onshore turbine in Nasudden, Sweden, where 49 birds (of species unknown)  were reported to have been found early one morning  in 1983.

The turbine was not operational at the time, but the weather was poor and the birds are thought to have been drawn to the structure by a single lamp about 35ft above the ground.

However, no one has yet come up with a way of measuring avian collisions with offshore turbines so the extent of destruction at these turbines is likely to be higher – but it is impossible to tell.

Unlike fish, birds have no commercial value - no one measures their ‘stocks’ - so regard for their welfare is minimal.

The giant of UK offshore wind is the rapidly-growing Danish company, Ørsted, whose projected developments off the UK could result in an area approaching the size of the county of Yorkshire becoming a no-go area for almost all birds. Not so much habitat ‘loss’ as habitat ‘theft’.

The author applauds the American Bird Conservancy which is vigorous in warning on the windfarm threat to birds, especially on migration flyways.

But he is critical of the RSPB which he accuses of lying low on the issue - in part, be believes, because it has been a willing recipient of the generous donations and ‘partnership’ payments from windfarm developers including SSE, Scottish Power and Ecotricity.

The Crown Estate, which owns most of the seabed in British waters,  claims to be seeking to create “healthy places where natural habitats can thrive”.

But it wholeheartedly supports the Government’s push for offshore windfarm development - not surprising given

that its portfolio of sites, which  was valued at £855-million as of March last year, generates upwards of £28-million rental income per annum.

It is time, surely, for some of this money to be allocated for projects designed to protect and enhance the welfare of birds and other wildlife.

Because of the advance of solar, the author believes windpower may only be an intermediate technology (just as fax was a stepping stone to email). As such, its economic benefits may not be long-lasting.

He believes future generations would not thank us if  populations of birds were decimated, or even destroyed, for the sake of a technology lasting   only a few decades.     

A Fault To Nature - Birds, Migration and The Problem with Windfarms is available, price £3, as an e-book on Kindle.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=a+fault+to+nature

THREE NEW APARTMENT BLOCKS IN PROSPECT FOR CLEETHORPES SEAFRONT

AN ambitious new residential scheme is set to change the face of Cleethorpes seafront.

Property development Cielo Realty Ltd is seeking planning permission to build three apartment blocks on a derelict site - formerly occupied by Clifton Bingo Club - at Grant Street which is  near the railway station.

The submitted plans reveal one to be 13 storeys high, one at 11 storeys and one at nine storeys.

In all, they would accommodate 99 apartments, underground parking and possibly some shops at ground-floor level.

The agent for the scheme is Mike Cole, of Hampshire-based Bell Cornwell LLP whose  application is now being considered by planners at North East Lincolnshire Council.