Badgers live all along the Underbarn and their habitat includes this site. They cross from here to the Rodwell Trail.

Environment and the Site of Special Scientific Interest

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Register your views about policy and development boundaries by sending an email to Weymouth and Portland Borough Council and Ken Reed.

Any environmental report attached to a planning application is the developer’s responsibility and has to be undertaken transparently by an approved independent body. The report attached to this application does not meet this criterion. It was prepared “in support” of the application and omits most environmental considerations. Of those it does mention, some appear to be wrong and others misleading or unhelpful.

The Site of Special Scientific Interest follows the mean low tide mark at this point and includes the majority of this site. At high spring tides the sea would come to within less than nine metres of the planned properties.

It is Council policy that development likely to have an adverse impact on an SSSI or Sensitive Marine Area will not be permitted unless the reasons for the development clearly outweigh the harm to the special nature conservation value / geological interest of the site. Furthermore, the policy safeguards the “Sensitive Marine Area” onto which the drainage of the properties and the armoured toe would encroach.

Wheatears and many other birds rest on the edge of Portland Harbour and on this site during the annual migration.

The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 places a duty on public bodies to further the conservation and enhancement of SSSIs. To illegally damage an SSSI is an offence and penalties apply. Owners and occupiers of SSSIs must give English Nature written notice before initiating any operation likely to damage the site. None of the operations listed when the site was established may proceed without English Nature’s Consent.

English Nature provides a list of types of operation likely to damage features of special interest. This development seems to contravene at least twelve of English Nature’s “Standard Reference Numbers”.

Until the autumn of 2002 Castle Cove Sailing Club occupied the SSSI. They were not allowed intervention in the natural succession of the cliff area and geology for which the site was notified. They also had to keep disturbance to a minimum on all areas of the SSSI.

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This site is created and maintained by Ken Reed.