~ Tim Whittingham
It is nearly three years since Friends of the Quantocks were tipped off that a hedge had disappeared from farmland in the AONB. Removing a field hedge without permission from the Local Planning Authority is a crime and when we reported it to the then District Council we expected them to take it seriously, especially in the protected landscape of the Quantocks, and especially when our investigations showed that as much as 700m of ancient hedge had been destroyed over several years.
We were sadly disappointed. We were able to provide satellite images before and after, roadside photographs with an ecologist’s assessments of what could be seen, a lidar survey (from the LPS archaeology project) showing the earth bank that had been flattened, tithe maps showing the hedge to have been hundreds of years old and statements from local people who remembered wondering why there had been a JCB in a tall crop of maize.
The Council’s own investigation went no further than to speak with the landowner who assured them that there had never been a hedge there, only a fence, at which they declared that a lack of evidence meant that they could do no more.
We have now been through the full complaints procedure and done the rounds of individual Councillors, the Local Government Ombudsman, the Rural Payments Agency and the Office of Environmental Protection and it seems none of them see the need to stand up with us for wildlife and the countryside against a Local Authority in financial crisis and a wealthy landowner.
When we have sought publicity other farmers have responded with incredulity saying “no farmer would do that, every farmer knows you can’t take out hedges” and indeed we haven’t been able to find a single similar case anywhere in the UK. We hear much of the value of hedges for biodiversity, as heritage assets, as wildlife havens and corridors, as carbon stores, preventing erosion, providing shade and stopping water runoff and here on the Quantocks there are grants available for planting new hedges even though Somerset won’t protect those that it already has.
We are unwilling to throw in the towel even now, but it is difficult to see where we can go next with our complaint.
STOP PRESS!!
Although we hadn’t previously found a similar case of hedge removal anywhere in England just this week we heard that Donyatt Parish Council have been calling on Somerset Council to act to stop a landowner removing hedges. The Council officer has replied that they will take no action beyond “writing to the owner of the farm and advising him/her of the obligations that landowners have under the Hedgerow Regulations”. It seems no hedges are protected in Somerset as long as Somerset Council refuse to use their statutory powers.
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