Wildlife
What will happen to Wildlife? Or ' The Tale of Morva the Moth and the Unwelcome Neighbour'
Part of the proposed development site includes large areas of 'virgin beach'. This beach, and the flood levels, scrubland and cliffs backing it, are one of the diminishing British habitats for plants and animals specialising in the challenges of a coastal environment. Building upon it will mean the loss of a fragile natural ecosystem.
Richard Marsh, Cornwall Wildlife Trust Assistant Conservation Manager, wrote to the Government Office South West on July 03, 2003 as follows;
"Cornwall Wildlife Trust is concerned that if this development goes ahead without a full EIA being applied to it, there will be significant negative impacts on the nature conservation value of the adjacent inter-tidal habitats (and potentially adjacent areas of the beach morphology) and the terrestrial habitats of the cliffs and eastern bay."
Cornwall Wildlife Trust has identified Shorthorn Beach, the middle beach of the 3 beaches which make up Carlyon Bay Beach, as a site of national importance.
If the new Sea Wall is moved forward as proposed, it will extend into the tidal zone creating more development land behind it. New material will be needed to fill the gap. However, this material will be washed away by the action of the sea on a regular basis. Ampersand have applied for planning permission to import additional beach material to maintain the shoreline at a constant level. In the planning proposal, this process is euphemistically referred to as 'beach re-charge.' The material for the 'beach re-charge' will not be sand, but 'stent' - a bi-product of the china clay industry. It will need to be ferried from the area of production to its' destination by large lorries. They will thunder through residential areas from the Clay villages to the coast to supply this false need.
The huge quantities of "stent" needed will be tipped onto the beach, spread two metres deep, and then kaolin plumes (rather like a "marine snow") will permanently smother marine habitats.
The lorry journeys will also further clog our already congested roads.
This environmentally corrosive process will be supplying a demand which does not currently exist - it is a false demand - a demand for development land. We need to question why should we suffer the effects of substantial additional traffic on land and the effects of the additional stent at sea simply to feed this false need?
Restormel Borough Councils own Draft Report by Royal Haskonning acknowledges the covert aim behind the planning applications;
"a key aim of the study team has been to maximise landward development potential at the site"
In 2001 the largely unsurveyed wildlife site at the back of the beaches were home to some uncommon coast-plants suchb as; Common Fleabane, Evening Primrose, Frosted orache, Mossy stonecrop, Samphire, Scentless Mayweed, Sea Plantain, Sea Rocket, Sea Sandwort, Seaside centaury, Shrubby sea-blite.
Frosted Orache Evening Primrose Fleabane Samphire Sea Plantain Sea Centaury Scentless Mayweed
It was also one of only 2 places in Cornwall which were home to a pretty and unusual, nationally notable Moth, the Cream-bordered Green Pea Moth. CBW have adopted this moth as the campaign mascot and named her the old traditional Cornish name of Morva. Her habitat is seriously under threat as it is gradually encroached on to make way for the holiday homes.
The works carried out on the beaches at Carlyon Bay have already caused damage to aspects of this environment and further endangered these and other plants and vulnerable butterflies which depend on them.
This is the kind of action which goes against all current thinking on preserving our coastal heritage.
We are all encouraged to report immediately to DEFRA on any instances of pollution noticed.