Planning Matters

'Long Acres' Newfield Lane . The planning application by Westbury Homes went to the Planning Board on 10th January with a recommendation by the Planning Officer for conditional approval. Regrettably the revised planning application, reported in the last Dore to Door was amended before it went to the Board.

The amendment related primarily to traffic calming measures in Newfield Lane and Townhead Road. These were apparently requested by the Highways Department and included on Newfield Lane four bands of a different road surface across the road, but more significantly the provision of oak posts on each side of the two bands, which appeared obtrusive, particularly in respect of one near the seat at the bottom of the Lane. The Society objected to this.

The proposals included the movement of the proposed footpath between the service road and Newfield Crescent from the Wag Wood side of the road to the Newfield Crescent side. This is an undoubted improvement. The proposals also included the removal of ten trees, because of the particular siting at the service road entrance and the replacement by ten trees of standard size. Regrettably the site still shows 36 units, which significantly exceeds the density in the locality but is less than Government guidelines. The Society objected to this density.

The Planning Board approved the application. It is hoped that the traffic proposals can be scaled down before the work commences. It should be borne in mind that, there is still an appeal, by the developers, against the refusal to take the access road into the site straight into the middle of Newfield Lane and the footpath across the Recreation Ground. If that appeal were successful the results would be devastating to the village.

291 Totley Brook Road . The planning consideration on this long ongoing saga have probably now come to an end, with an approval by the Planning Board for flats on the old Caretakers house site at the corner of Furniss Avenue. Having obtained planning consent for four houses on the site, the Council then sold the property and a developer slapped in an application for a three-storey block of 12 flats. The consternation locally was understandable. The proposed slab of a building did not relate to anything in the neighbourhood. Following pressure by local Councillors and residents the application was refused on the grounds that the development was too large and out of keeping with the locality. The developer reapplied for a 3-storey block of 10 flats showing precious little difference from the previous application in mass and height.

The application went to the Planning Board on 22nd November and because of an uproar at the meeting and serious complaints and 'allegations' at the meeting in respect of the way the matter had been handled, the Board deferred a decision. An internal enquiry was undertaken by the Council's Chief Executive into the allegation. The report states that "there is no evidence of deliberate inappropriate action on the part of Officers, nor was there any evidence that there had been any improper influence by the developer. (It was) acknowledged that whilst there had been a degree of mishap (for example the misunderstanding over the date of the meeting and the confusion over the returned plans), and miscommunication, for example the timing of the work to the trees, there was no evidence to support any allegation of deliberate inappropriate action".

The application went to the Planning Board Meeting on 10th January showing no appreciable visual difference from the previously refused plans and, on Officers recommendation, was approved. It is not surprising that the public sometimes lose faith in the planning process.

22 Townhead Road . You will recall the problem of the demolition of a stonewall in the Dore Conservation Area, without any consent. The owner was served with an Enforcement Notice by the Council requiring that the wall be reinstated. The owner has appealed against the Enforcement Notice, and a decision is awaited. The Dore Village Society has made representations against the appeal, submitting that the stone boundary walls are an attractive and important architectural feature of the Conservation Area and are integral to both the character of the houses and the Dore Conservation Area.

'Fairthorn' . It is understood that 'Fairthorn' on Whitelow Lane is coming up for sale. Clearly there is concern that developers will be interested in building on the site. The property is in Green Belt and the Society will be totally against any development of the site outside the footprint of the existing building or any change of use that would be misappropriate in such a sensitive situation. We must wait and see!

David Heslop

Farming notes

This winter's got to be one of the wettest for years. You don't need a rain gauge to know that, just a pair of wellies, by the time you've walked across a few fields you've got half of them stuck to your boots. The chief problem for the livestock farmer is getting the cow muck out of the yard, the tractor makes huge great ruts all over the place, and any stock outside turn the whole field into mud. The other feature this winter has been the gales, with several big branches coming off. There's a fine old oak in the field at the bottom of Old Hay Lane come down.

Whether all this is an indication of climate change due to human activity I'm personally very doubtful, there's a lot of very iffy science being put out as if it's hard fact, but governments are never slow to grab an excuse to put up taxes. The only thing that's the same about our weather is that every year's, different though it's true we've not had any snow to speak of for several years.

30 years ago we had a contract with the council for snow clearing. They supplied a snowplough that fitted on the front of the tractor and then rang us up when a snowfall was forecast and told us to stand by, then a few hours later we'd be off out. In the old days we had a little David Brown Cropmaster without a cab and it wasn't much fun driving around in thick snow, but it brought in a bit of useful cash.

There weren't many years when we didn't have at least a fortnight's snowploughing. Now even when it does snow it's got to be knee deep before they call you out, I guess they're economising. It'd be interesting to know how much the council's saved over the last five years on snowploughing.

We're still getting the frosts but they seem to be earlier. When we used to keep turkeys for Christmas we wanted cold weather in the weeks before Christmas to keep them cool, but it was amazing how often we got a mild spell at just the wrong time, but for the last few years we've had frosty Christmas's. And of course this year was a proper white Christmas.

We always used to reckon that February was the worst month, but of late, hard frosts have been over by the end of January. If this trend continues I for one am not complaining. Farmers on this side of Sheffield have had to compete with farmers in the lowland areas who have a growing season that starts a month earlier.

In the past this handicap has been recognised in the Hill Farm Compensatory Payments and Less Favoured Areas schemes, but now all these have come to an end with the reform of the CAP. What long term effect this will have remains to be seen, but in essence, farmers in future will be paid a subsidy based on previous subsidy payments that have nothing to do with what they are producing now.

The new word is decoupling, payment is decoupled from production. I don't know whether that word is in the dictionary yet but Microsoft Word puts a squiggly red line under it. The new system is called the single payment scheme. In it the word farmer has been replaced with land manager and the word farm has disappeared altogether. The immediate effect it has had is to knock £100 off the price of bull calves in Bakewell Market.

The idea now is that the land manager is supposed to draw up a scheme to keep the countryside looking nice in order to get his CAP payment and Defra have taken on another 3000 staff to implement it. The time honoured feature of a bit rusting machinery in a hedge bottom where it gave up the ghost could be a thing of the past, although maybe a broken a broken down old tractor can be reclassified as a collection of spare parts awaiting use. Joe Rowarth used to say of his pile of old tyres at the bottom of his orchard, " they're not dumped, they're stored". He was ahead of his time.

Richard Farnsworth

Ryecroft Farm

The Wildlife Garden

When we were at school, I wonder just how many of us could envisage our teachers leading normal lives: they went to football matches; liked to go out for a drink and had children of their own? Even when I was at college, it was difficult to shake off the idea that somehow my lecturers were 'different'. However, I started thinking that I might have been right after all, when one day my botany professor described what he did for his summer holidays. He told us in a tutorial that he had spent every August in his long academic career visiting a particular road-side grass verge and armed with a note-book and quadrat, he would record (with the help of his doting wife) all the plants that were growing there.

It seemed a decidedly eccentric thing to do and no doubt many of his colleagues thought so too, but how the times have changed. Suddenly, all his carefully collected data and that of countless amateur naturalists who have been recording the date of the first snowdrop poking its head out of the soil, when the frogs start to get amorous in their garden pond or the arrival of the first swallow, is worth its weight in gold. No longer are such phenological records derided as simply being a vestige of 'old-fashioned Victorian science', they are now seen as an important tool in helping us understand how global warming has been affecting our lives and also that of our plants and animals.

However, there are of course some schools of thought, notably American, which consider global warming may not be occurring and even if it is, it might actually be advantageous for us. The suggestion is that over here in Britain, we could be basking in a Mediterranean climate. Some gardeners would no doubt relish the idea of being able to over-winter bananas and passion flowers outdoors or have geraniums (pelargoniums) dangling from their hanging baskets all year round. But I wonder just how many of us would be quite so enthusiastic about the idea of mosquitoes laying their eggs in our water feature?

These might not be the only pests affected. Mild winters will also favour slugs and snails, and we have always relied on cold temperatures to control the numbers of over-wintering pests, such as aphids. Without 'killing frosts', we can expect aphids to be much more of a problem earlier in the year. From the point of view of our garden birds, this might not be a bad thing as many species feed their fledglings on these insects, but how would such plagues affect our beans and roses?

Even the simplest things in the wildlife garden may have to change. If winters become wetter, then bird food in peanut- and seed-holders will spoil much more rapidly, so to ensure the food doesn't deteriorate, we may have to only put out a little each day and change it more often. Also, how would many of our birds adapt to long, hot summers? You can imagine that martins, swallows and swifts would love this type of weather for the flying insects it ought to encourage, but there again, the birds might not be able to find any mud to build their nests. Other birds which rely on foraging for insects in the soil could struggle if the ground was baked hard for months on end, so would supplementary feeding in summer then become the norm?

Whether or not these and any other changes will actually take place is of course in the lap of the gods (or more likely the American consumer), but what I can guarantee is that there are bound to be some amateur naturalists and even the occasional eccentric scientist who will be recording it all.

You can find more Information on the UK Phenology Network at its website www.phenology.org.uk

Jack Daw

Battle of the squirrels

A letter from Christine Spencer published in our last issue has stirred up a heated debate amongst readers, with letters and articles sent in, both in defence of and against grey squirrel.

It would seem that entertaining as their antics can be, the damage they cause is largely unseen. We leave readers to reach their own conclusions.

The red squirrel is extinct!

The red squirrel is extinct! Well not quite, but it might not be very long before this is true in Great Britain. I was asked the other day why we control grey squirrels at Chatsworth. This is the answer.

The red squirrel is the only native tree squirrel in Europe. There are subtle genetic differences between the British and Irish race and those found in the rest of Europe. It is, therefore, very important to conserve our diminishing stock of native red squirrels.

Why is the red squirrel declining in numbers? The answer is because of the alien grey squirrel. The grey squirrel is a small 'game' mammal that occurs naturally in the eastern hardwood forests of North America and was introduced into England just over 100 years ago. However, it is only in the last 30-50 years that its spread has become explosive.

It was 50 years after the first introduction before the connection was made between the expansion of the grey and the diminishing numbers of reds. It is estimated that there are now only 30,000 reds left in England, mainly in Northumberland, but 2,000,000 greys! Why then has the grey been so successful?

Well, firstly, it has no natural predators in Great Britain, although goshawks do take a few. They are much bigger than the native red. They breed twice a year (reds only once), have bigger litters and live twice as long as the red. They are also far less fussy eaters and will capitalise on almost any food source. Crucially, they carry a form of parapox virus which is deadly to reds but does not seem to affect the greys.

As well as replacing our native red, the grey squirrel is the greatest predator of small songbirds, exceeding the damage done by raptors, magpies, crows and even the domestic cat. They also damage trees by bark stripping, sometimes at the base, sometimes in the crown and sometimes from floor to tip. If the damage is not too great the tree can callous over the stripped area. However, rot invariably sets in and degrades the timber. The tree is weakened and can snap off in a wind.

The damage occurs to trees between five and 40 years of age. Sycamore, beech, oak and sweet chestnut are the favoured trees but damage can also be severe on other species such as pine. Spruce, which is native in North America, is seldom touched. Grey squirrels also enter roof spaces and cause considerable damage by gnawing whatever is in the loft, including electric cables.

The threat was recognised as long ago as the 1930s. The Grey Squirrel (Prohibition of Importation and Keeping) Order of 1937 makes it an offence to import grey squirrels into Great Britain, to keep grey squirrels in Great Britain and to turn loose any grey squirrel.

Because of the long growing cycle, it is easy to think that the woods and forests will always be there. However, the mature trees that you see today grew up without grey squirrels. The younger trees that should be the mature trees of the future are being damaged and killed in ever increasing numbers.

Anybody who walks in Stand Wood cannot fail to see the trees that have had bark stripped, and this is in spite of our management control programme. Ten years ago we were taking out 200 greys each year. Now we are taking out 500 each year and the damage to trees, young birds and the woodland biodiversity is still increasing.

In any part of England, you only have to look across a valley at a wooded hillside during June to August to see brown leaves in the tree crowns amidst all the greenery. That is grey squirrel damage. The Forest Commission's research department has stated that the grey squirrel is the biggest threat to Europe's future woodlands.

The future of beech in the Chilterns is now seriously in doubt. Woodland owners are not planting any more beech and the naturally seeded trees are being destroyed as fast as they appear. In the Forest of Dean, oak is being damaged to such an extent, and the young trees that should be the future timber crop are so few, that the experts predict the species demise within the next 100 years. Many foresters have welcomed the National and Community Forest initiatives but are equally concerned about the almost certain devastation which grey squirrels will produce as the trees become teenagers.

Many people enjoy the grey squirrel's presence in parks, gardens and woods. However, the furry little animal's innocent looking profile belies a vicious and destructive nature. It is an environmental catastrophe that the Government is just not taking seriously. We are in danger of being remembered as the generation who sat back and watched our natural heritage destroyed and did nothing about it. If the fragile existence of the red squirrel and the accompanying woodland biodiversity are to survive and thrive, eradication of the grey squirrel is the only option. That is why we, and many other private estates, have a grey squirrel control programme.

Geoff Machin, Head Forester

Ed. This article first appeared in the annual newsletter for the Chatsworth Estate and is reproduced with their kind permission.

In defence of the grey squirrel

Dear Sir,

Unwanted humans. I feel I have to write in response to Christine Spencer's letter regarding the shocking activities of some residents of Dore against squirrels. A friend of mine told me the other day of a lady in Millhouses who also traps squirrels in a cage, drowns them and then dumps their bodies in Derbyshire. All this cruelty in response to the apparent event of squirrels nesting in her roof some time ago and eating her electricity cables.

To be so cruel is unnecessary. Firstly, it is unlikely that squirrels will nest in a house roof where there is the choice of nesting in a tree instead. If you are worried about squirrels nesting in your roof, perhaps you should plant a tree! Secondly, squirrels don't eat cables. Have you noticed how they chew the wood on a bird feeder to get to the food and not the wire mesh? If you have something nesting in your roof that eats cables, perhaps you should consider that it could be rats. This brings me to my third point. Squirrels are rodents, but are not more related to rats than hamsters, gerbils, guinea-pigs, etc. They do not mate with rats, and they do not carry diseases like rats. They do not eat household waste, or live in sewers.

The other burning issue is red squirrels. It is popularly believed that grey squirrels caused the demise of the red in much of Britain. Grey squirrels carry a virus that is fatal to reds. However, it is worth realising that grey squirrels do not know this and do not go around deliberately infecting red squirrel populations. It is also worth noting that the red squirrel was under threat before the grey squirrel was introduced. The reduction in their numbers has been for a variety of reasons: red squirrels cannot digest acorns easily, and therefore do not thrive in deciduous forest that contains no coniferous trees. Therefore, in deciduous forest reds are weaker than grey squirrels in terms of immunity.

Unlike grey squirrels, red squirrels do not like strong light and therefore try to avoid as much as possible clearings and roads. They thus tend to stay in one area of woodland. Increasing deforestation has meant that woodland they might inhabit has become less m area, causing them to run out of food. In addition, red squirrels are tree dwellers more than their grey cousins and therefore have failed to adapt to the increasing sporadic forested area man has created for them. There are areas in the US, and the Lake District where grey and red squirrels cohabit harmoniously, seemingly without interbreeding. It is not surprising to note that these areas are vast forests, largely untouched by man.

It would be lovely to suggest re-introducing the red squirrel to much of Britain, but is also worth noting that much of Britain has lost its vast forests. A small woodland like Ecclesall Woods divided by busy roads would soon run out of food to support a red squirrel population. Evidence of this is that the grey squirrels from the woods have to search gardens for food - and get murdered for their trouble. Red squirrels would be unlikely to emerge from the woods for food and would therefore perish once more.

It is amazing any animal survives human interference. So, the next time you see a grey squirrel in your garden, admire its strength to adapt and consider that because of us it is the only squirrel we have left; and were it not for its introduction, we would have no squirrels at all.

Jennifer Henderson