Hands Off Hartlebury Common

#51: - Hartlebury Common

I believe in conservation, true conservation, you are quite right, the common should be maintained the way it is.

#54: -

Can you tell me why you are glad it is going to be "Managed and Restored" as you call it. I think you are in the clear minority on that one.

The heath as you call Hartlebury Common, will disappear but under a blanket of flame and smoke.

Even after the recent rains it is as dry as a crisp.

leave it alone, fewer fires.

Increase the heath and lose the trees, you have the potential for distaster.

Just one of many reasons why this balmy artificial scheme should not go on. If you had read my petition, there are a few more.

Can you do me a favour, can you fill in with some detail as to my objections, its the one thing in commom with comments like yours, they do not address mine and other peoples  concerns but generalise. Natural England and WCC are the same.

#58: Choose a nickname - Fire risk

You see, it's easy to get your argument wrong if you do not read clearly what I have said which is;

That by REDUCING scrub and tree cover and Widening the cover of heath and reducing natural fire breaks by installing heath do add up to an increased risk of fire.

You WILL create a drier more fire prone enviroment because the trees and scrub create shade and lock moisture into the ground, Green ground cover and wet or damp mulch underneath juvenile trees is not particulary flamable.

There were no trees at the site of the fire, just gorse which had become flamable because we are experiencing the driest spring since 1910.

Therefore, expanding heath area, climate change,  windier weather, site on top of a hill, drier heath for longer periods, lack of natural firebreaks and the historic tendacy for the heath to be arsoned.

What makes you think I want an increase in scrub and gorse?

Do you think felling the pine plantation and the two adjacent decidious plantations will make the common less prone to fire?

Well managed heath eh, like this, the future of hartlebury Common?

"The Dorset Heathland Project was set up in 1989 in order to offset continuing losses of lowland heathland and to reduce fragmentation, through a programme of land management advice and habitat restoration.

The Project ran two teams, restoring heaths in the Avon Valley and Purbeck, mainly by removing invading trees.  In 2003, the Project celebrated the milestone achievement of restoring over 1,000 hectares of lowland heath, successfully demonstrating that large-scale lowland heath restoration is a viable proposition."

And then this happens            http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-13716970

Manage the site, conserve what is there by all means, but in 1976, these fires were a daily occurence throughout the land.  Increasing fire risk by disregarding common sense in favour of rote arguments is not good enough. I am not in favour of a preponderence of anything, is that so wrong when 80% of the common is open space and heath anyway?

Is that really perverse?, I don't think so and most people agree. You cannot fathom the land and the way man and nature can interact from text books.

#51: - Hartlebury Common

Exactly, the common reflects it's current circumstances and has always done so. It should not be a ludricous artificial wildlife theme park.

#58: Choose a nickname - Fire risk

In response again to you Fire risk comments.

What is more likeley to catch fire, trees and woodland and heath, or heath.

Historically, fires have always started on the unwooded areas and always will.

The fires will always choose the areas you want to expand, heath.

The Dorset fires followed on from exactly the same scheme as is being carried out at Hartlebury Common.

At Hartlebury however, the risks are far higher because of an additional list of factors which elevate flamability.

#I 1: -

I would advise you all to research the biodiversity of heathland. Heathland is one of the worlrds rarest environments - even more rare than rainforest. The fact that Hartlebury is isolated makes it even more important that the habitat is maintained as heath and that succession is arrested and preferably reversed. I suggest research includes visits to Highgate Common, where lots of work has been carried out to restore the heatland & its very rare flora & fauna. The soil scraping so deriided by the action group is not to check on the progress as has been suggested, but the scrapes are to assist the survival of the many [ more than 100] varieties of solitary & mining bees that heathland supports.

I am a dog owner & will point out that we have choices about where we exercise our pets, unfortunately, heathland species can only exist on heathland. Scrub destroys the habitat & must be controlled, or do the present users of the Common want their children to be denied the opportunity to do likewise?

#66: Dingle - Re: hands off hartlebury common

To say that heathland is rarer than rain forest is purely a cheap imotive comment and does not really mean anything. The Rain forest is under threat becuase of tree felling and land clearence. Critisism of course is selctive.

Heathland is rare because our NATURAL countryside heals itself wherever it can and has.

With reference to Highgate, again you miss the point, the flora and fauna are rare beacause this habitat is not natural, a case of the horse driving the cart on policy.

The fact that Hartlebury is isolated shows what a insignificant anomally it is. It's a joke, on the WCC website they seriously claim that "Malvern Hills is the only place where this moth exists. Wyre forest is the only place to find this butterfly" It is an insult to peoples intteligence and misleading. It is this sort of nonsense that exposes the barefaced deceptions and lack of common sense. These species exist also in pockets of countryside not accessible to anyone. I have a friend a farmer. He has the biggest herd of rare breeds cattle in the midlnds 600. He has created pools, marsh and bog on land around his farm. He is a keen naturalist and unsung hero. There are a lot of farmers like him and land owners. There are also areas of farm land and countryside that are inaccesible.

Efforts should be concentrated on areas which have an natural inclination to be heath, if there are any. You make the succession by trees sound as if it is toxic algae bloom, or some freak of nature taking place.

With a population of over 100 species of bees, does it not strike you as something of a success since the common has been so woefully neglected.

Work that is being carried out is already damaging. The extremeley unstable sand - soil is being eroded by rains and wind.

An area adjacent to Pooland Nursery was cleared of trees in an experiment orchestrated by Liz Nether of WCC to show how heather would colonise the area. The trouble was that it also an area which had a large number of common lizards. I know because I would sit with my children and photograph them. Since the clearing work, no heather and the lizards have dissapeared.

The common exists as a diverse, interdependent ecosystem, the argument is that the nunbers of the rare so called heathland species can be scaled up by orchestrated enviroment bias. This justifies this carnage

This work is carried out beacuse of the money on offer from the goverment who in turn recieve it from Life+ nature, the cash clearing house working within the framework of the The Rio de Janeiro Convention on biological diversity.

You can read the wording of the document here http://www.cbd.int/convention/text/

The Rio conference dealt mostly with the burden placed on nature by extraction of natural resourses and humankinds imposition generally creating monosystems. So therefore, the aim of restoration to re-inhabite and restore enviroments and to maintain bio diversity is subsequent to the above.

Reading the document, whilst it does not specifically prohibit what is being done to places like Hartlebury Common, I can see with all the incentives on offer, why a goverment could be keen to exploit loopholes. I believe that the true spirit of the Rio accord has been deliberatley misinterpretated and the whole case for creating an unatural enviroment is stretching the imagination somewhat. I beleive it is a cynical excercise where the welfare of the whole mechanism is more cared for than the countryside it is supposed to protect. I belive that money and jobs are the reason for this work and that people have become mesmerised by this "Fashion"

Apart from that, the enclosure IS illegal, but dont take my word for it, have a look at this but I suspect you already have

http://oss.panther.webexpectations.net/concern-about-hartlebury-common-fencing-plan-%E2%80%93-7-january-2009concern-about-hartlebury-common-fencing-plan-%E2%80%93-7-january-2009/

http://www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/rare_precious.htm

I believe the literal wording of the statement means bio diversity as indiginous to our countries and NATURAL to those places.

Steve McCarron

This camaign is not affliated to any particular group or section of the population. eg, dog walkers, dog haters, angry grannys, tree huggers, nimby,s, people who like cattle, people who hate fences, people who think their  grandchildren will get eaten by dogs, people who like fences, worcester county council, people who hate cattle, hartlebury common group, people who like moths, people who like butterflys, people who like solitary bees, people who think that the fencing is great because their dogs will be safe in the common. etc, etc.

However it is affiliated to the welfare of Hartlebury Common and the preservation of our common land, without interference,  a jewel in the crown of our society, a natural space, everybody can enjoy

#45: Local -

Will you please leave some more comments, I could do with a good laugh.

I have used Hartlebury Common as it is 'common land' for over ten years to walk my dog (and yes, I do clear up the dog mess to those ' do do sprayers'!) and I now have MS which gives me limited mobility. I feel that the current council and its followers are vastly underestimating the damage to our local environment with the destruction of some beautiful trees on the site, which lets face it have only improved the experience of walking and habitation for birds and creatures on the common. By imposing 'cattle and their do do' on the site, I feel that they are infringing my human rights to walk the common unrestricted, safely and without having to have my dog on his lead, which due to my mobility problems I can no longer do! I hope that the cost of fencing this common land and keeping these cows pays for itself by putting back money into the public purse, afterall I expect our council tax has paid for this wretched project!

#72: - Time to grow up

Spraying trees with orange paint?, what trees what paint? I thought that was the councils job.

As for NO COWS on the car park, not me I'm afraid.

I have told the council exactly what I am intending to do and that is a reversal of their work, especially the fencing. They were notified as were the police prior to me taking action, to redress an offence committed by the council.

CRIMINAL DAMAGE, has been carried out by the council who have no ownership of Hartlebury Common. If they OWNED the common, then they could have demonstrated that clearly then and I would have and will be arrested for criminal damage.They CANNOT demonstrate ownership and therefore are guilty of criminal acts which I have the right to rectify.

The damage which is being done to the common is far greater than anything I could achieve and it's a shame that people find it difficult to search further for truth, than what they are being told by idiots.

I suggest that you read what I have written on this site and do not let yoursel be led along by corrupt officials.

Oh yes, I worry about the cattle as well, espeacially when they are enclosed in a burning heathland surrounded by smoke and flame.

As for growing up, I have, which is why I am doing this.

I have thirty years experience in conservation and restoration industries also.