They are just a few inches long – but they are threatening to ruin plans for an adventure park at a beauty spot close to the Black Country.
Baggeridge Country Park is the latest area to fall foul of the great crested newt, a tiny reptile with a great power to halt developments.
Planners had been due to decide this week whether to give the go ahead for the proposals for an activity centre on a one-acre site of unused thick woodland at Baggeridge Country Park. But it was then suggested that the land, part of a former colliery, might be home to the great crested newts.
The whole planning process has now ground to a halt for an investigation to be launched.
The consequences for the development and the taxpayer could be enormous.
Just last week Cheshire County Council revealed it spent £60,000 moving just four newts from land that had been earmarked for new school classrooms.
And, locally, the building of Fibbersley Park Primary in Willenhall has been delayed for a year. South Staffordshire Council has delayed the planning application at Baggeridge for further investigations.
The plans include the creation of climbing equipment, zip lines and cargo nets, linking tiny platforms 30ft in the air.
The park would be used by schools, youth clubs and companies wanting give their employees a unique team-building experience.
Leisure chiefs at South Staffordshire District Council lodged a planning application for the project in January.
The course would be developed in a partnership between the council and Kinver-based company Closer to the Edge, which is run by former military staff and ex-teachers. South Staffordshire District Council spokesman Jamie Angus said: “The application has been deferred after the council received an objection from Natural England.
“They expressed concerns about how it could affect some great crested newts, which are a protected species.
“More information about the site has been requested.”
The council says once it has received the extra information about any possible effects the scheme could have on the newts it will then be able to take a decision on whether the project can go ahead.
The application for the activity centre plan is now set to go back before planners in March or April this year.
5 Comments
The great crested newt is a protected species. It’s not ruining anything. It is up to us to protect all speices of plant and animal from destruction.
Please could someone tell me why it would cost £60,000 to remove 4 newts. Is this just another example of coucils being wastefull with tax payers money.
Has anybody told Ken Livisngstone ? He has a great interest in Newts [I am serious].
What a strange sense of priorities we have in this country today. A couple of newts are discovered in a pond and the whole machinery of government swings into action to protect them. Meanwhile, a quarter of a million unborn children are slaughtered each year and no one gives a damn!
Oi, South Staffs council - the clue’s in the name: it’s a country park. Don’t ruin it by dumping a poncy ‘activity centre’ in it (as if the existing kids’ adventure playground isn’t bad enough. If people actually bothered to walk two minutes from the car park, they might find some wonderful nature to marvel at instead.)
Surely the “one-acre site of unused thick woodland” is probably a home to countless plant and animal species and should be left well alone.
Baggeridge was once a wonderful wild place and haven for many birds and animals. Now, year on year, I see that haven becoming eroded as the loud, littering masses are catered for with cafés, playgrounds, minature railways, and paths criss-crossing every inch of land. What next, a shopping centre and apartment complex? There’ll be no wildlife left in 10 years. Welcome to Baggeridge Urban Adventure Park: a sanitised outdoors for the masses.
Shameful.