The Wrong Kind of Trams by Ian Brown

No doubt everyone has now noted the bulldozing of the Lower Hardy Farm SBI by GMPTE's contractors? I've been composing a piece about this but I asked my friend Ian Brown (formerly Chair of Manchester Wildlife) to comment on it first because he gave evidence at the Public Inquiry in 1995. Ian's piece is given below:

After successfully fighting off a plan, in the early 1990s, by U.M.I.S.T., the owners of Lower Hardy Farm, who wanted to fill the site with 23 ft of rubble, to make it level with the adjacent Upper Hardy Farm, for the extension of their playing fields, we were confronted by a plan to damage the site by an extension of Metrolink to the Airport.

In 1995, I attended the public inquiry into this proposed extension of Metrolink on behalf of Manchester Wildlife (a now defunct local conservation organisation). We were objecting on the grounds that the extension would destroy, or damage, a number of sites of importance to wildlife. The main points I made at the inquiry were:

a)That there was no need for a Metrolink extension, to the airport, as this was adequately covered by the new railway link. The airport was only a 15 minute train journey from the City centre; the Tram would take a lot longer than that.

b)That if there was a need for a Metrolink extension then it should be along a route with the best chance of picking up passengers. The planned route runs over several miles of unpopulated Mersey Valley. How much better would it be if it were to run along the Oxford Road/Wilmslow Road corridor. This would take it past the University, the Hospitals, Hollins College, Fallowfield, Withington, Didsbury and Northenden. A few more passengers to be found in those places! There would be less need for busses and the "tram" stops could be synchronised with the traffic lights to ease congestion. I was told that this was not practical as, in some of those places, there was not room for the platforms which the "trams" required and the "trams" were not designed for street running, except where it was absolutely necessary. This brought me to the point, which I was subtly making, that Manchester has the wrong kind of "tram". It should be better described as a light rail system. In most continental European, and some British, cities, Trams have access at pavement level. How typical of Manchester, with its love of White Elephants, to pick the wrong kind of "tram". It was at this point, in the inquiry, that I realised, what I had long suspected, that the people who are running things tend to veer towards the stupid side of stupid!

c)I also gave evidence on the wildlife and ecological importance of the sites which would be damaged, or destroyed, by the Metrolink extension. This included Lower Hardy Farm, which was a Site of Biological Importance. I suggested that, if the extension were to go ahead, the line should be taken along the Upper Hardy Farm side of the ditch, which separates the two "Farms". Then it could cross the ditch, at the last possible moment, in order to bridge the Mersey on the upstream side of the Jackson's Boat pub. This would have avoided the area where some of the more unusual plants, including orchids, were growing. I also mentioned the butterflies on the site. At the time, 13 species had been recorded. This may not sound a lot but, to put it into perspective, a survey at Rostherne Mere National Nature Reserve, at about the same time, found 14 species of butterfly. I, and others, have found that a good variety of butterflies is a sound, and easy, way to assess the ecological health of a habitat(See David Bishop about the importance of wild plants, in this respect). I knew not to put too much reliance on ecological evidence as, at the time, wildlife and wild habitats were not highly regarded by the planning system, particularly in Manchester.
For all I know, this may still be the case. I was relying more on the common sense arguments in a) and b). Common sense, when did that ever come into it?

I left the Inquiry with the feeling that the outcome was inevitable. Manchester wanted its prestige project (another White Elephant?) and was going to get it. Public Inquiry Inspectors are supposed to be independent but, as I attended a number of these farces, you will forgive me if I appear a little sceptical! Best of luck to you all.

Ian Brown, March 2011

New Nest Boxes on Chorlton Ees and Ivy Green

Recently, with the aid of a grant from the City Council, FoCM were able to purchase a number of bat boxes and twenty bird nesting boxes.

Ten of the bird boxes have been sited on the Chorlton Ees side (south side) of Chorlton Brook and ten on the Ivy Green side (north side).
The boxes are located both within the woodland and on the woodland edge adjacent to paths and open grassland.

The boxes are positioned so that their entrances face north/north east and this orientation shields the entrances from direct sunlight and the prevailing westerly winds.

There are very few mature trees on Chorlton Meadows because, prior to landfill, they were part of the flood plain of the river Mersey and used for grazing cattle. What is to be seen today is plantation woodland, thirty to forty years old - and certainly no older than fifty years; these trees are too young to have developed natural nest holes. Given good management and a hundred years there will, perhaps, be no need of nest boxes.
In the wider countryside there are fewer old trees available, due, in part, to the modern practise of lopping branches or clear felling trees at the first sign of rot (Health and Safety) thus denying birds of natural nest holes in which to raise their young and provide refuge in the winter months.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and The British Trust for Ornithology give guidance on the size of aperture for boxes depending on what species it is hoped to attract 25mm for Blue Tit (Parus caeruleus) 32mm Great Tit (Parus major) But all our boxes are 32mm as we believe that this provides access to many woodland species. In the wild natural holes in trees do not appear in any particular shape or size.

The value of nest boxes as shelter in winter is illustrated by the fact that sixty Wrens (Troglodytes troglodytes) have been counted occupying a single box!

By installing these boxes we hope to attract a greater number of species which can only add, especially in spring, to the enjoyment of all who use our local green space. We will add more boxes as funds become available.

All of the boxes have been numbered and their exact locations measured using GPS. They will be monitored to determine which species use them. Sadly we seem to have lost one box already - we think that it has been stolen.

We would like to thank Mark Hackett and Mark Agar who did the hard work of putting up the boxes.

John Agar, March 2011

The Forest Sell Off Controversy continued

After posting the last piece on John Leech and his speech on the Government's forest sell off proposals, I received an e-mail from FoCM member Ben Smart (some of you may recall that Ben is our local moth expert). I thought that Ben's comments were interesting and highly relevant and, in the interests of balance, I thought that, with Ben's permission, I would post our correspondence here (leaving out some of my more intemperate and sweary remarks - none of them directed at Ben, I hasten to add!)

Hi Dave

I know you said to contact John Leech re the speech, but I don’t really think it’s appropriate to have this speech on the FoCM website. The group should not be a mouthpiece for Con/Dem (sic) policies. If this policy was being proposed by a majority Tory administration alone, I suspect John Leech and the rest of the Liberal [Democrat] party, like the rest of us, would probably have opposed it (only guesswork, I know) and would probably have made much the same points that the opposition are putting.

The destruction of a good chunk of the [Lower Hardy Farm] SBI proceeds apace. Standing by the wooden fence on the north side of the Mersey, there is now a wide open track all the way through Lower Hardy Farm, towards Hardy Lane.

Best wishes,

Ben

Hi Ben,

Yes, I struggled with my conscience about this. But so many people spoke to me about it that I thought that I ought to ask John Leech myself. He wrote back to me and explained to me what actually occurred and what his thinking was. I decided that his reply was confidential between me and him (although he probably sent the same letter to all those of his constituents who wrote to him).

But the speech is in the public domain and I thought that it made a lot of sense - and although it is (unavoidably) political I think that it cuts through a lot of the general hysteria that has surrounded this issue. Whilst the sell-off was on the table I really couldn't make up my mind about what I thought about it. Although I believe privatisation, generally, to be ideologically driven madness I've also got little time for the Forestry Commission who have been responsible, in the past, for destroying huge tracts of our woodland.

Finally you mention Lower Hardy Farm. Please remember that it is a Labour Council that has allowed this to happen. They have utterly neglected our local environment and I suspect that they think that the environment, in general, is irrelevant (I've seen it reported that Gordon Brown himself considered the environment to be irrelevant). And in spite of the fact that they label themselves as 'Socialists' (when it suits them) I believe that Metrolink to the Airport is mainly about a toxic mixture of greed, vanity and airport expansion. I fear that they will eventually concrete over everything.

[At this point I expressed some of my own political views, which are not strictly relevant here and included some rude words which I would not like to inflict on our refined and genteel readership ...]

Anyway, I will try to avoid politics on the blog as much as possible ... but, I repeat, the environment is an intensely political subject (as the forestry furore showed).

Best Regards,

Dave

Hi Dave,

This is the actual question John Leech and his colleagues were voting on – I’d certainly have been with the motion rather than against on that one, despite any reservations towards the Forestry Commission. (I see 3 Conservatives and 4 Liberal Democrats voted with Labour).

That this House believes that the Government’s intention in the Public Bodies Bill to sell off up to 100 per cent. of England’s public forestry estate is fundamentally unsound; notes that over 225,000 people have signed a petition against such a sell-off; recognises the valuable role that the Forestry Commission and England’s forests have made to increasing woodland biodiversity and public access, with 40 million visits a year; further recognises that the total subsidy to the Forestry Commission has reduced from 35 per cent. of income in 2003-04 to 14 per cent. of income in 2010-11; further notes that the value of the ecosystems services provided by England’s public forest estate is estimated to be £680 million a year; notes that the value of such services could increase substantially in the future through the transition to a low carbon economy as a carbon market emerges; notes that the public forest estate has been retained in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; and calls on the Government to rethink its decision on the sale of England’s public forest estate in order to protect it for future generations.

As to the Metrolink, the system and the developments have been supported by Council, Government and John Leech. I am certain that much the same decisions would have been made whichever of the three parties were in power locally and nationally.
I’ve always, perhaps naively, thought that getting people out of cars and onto public transport must be a good thing, so am somewhat torn on the issue. Nevertheless it is incredibly depressing to be out looking at Lower Hardy Farm at the moment (and the sign telling us that the area has been surveyed for protected species and promising an increased number of trees seems to add insult to injury)!
I totally agree that politics and the environment era inextricably linked. I just don’t like seeing Liberal Democrat party speeches on the Friends of Chorlton Meadows blog, with no critical comment whatsoever. It might be worth at least printing the actual motion on the website so people can decide whether John Leech did the right thing.

Cheers,
Ben

I would just like to add a couple of footnotes to this correspondence:

(1) I am planning to post an article about Lower Hardy Farm and Metrolink very soon.

(2) It must be remembered that many people in South Manchester welcome Metrolink and many of them know nothing and care less about biodiversity. John Leech has a duty to listen to the views of all of his constituents and he has certainly listened, and actively supported, those of us who are pushing for the best mitigation for biodiversity loss possible.

Posted by Dave Bishop, February 2011

John Leech and That Vote on Forests

I never intended to talk much about politics on this blog but the Environment is an intensely political topic - so it's unavoidable really.

Many people are under the impression that our local MP, Mr John Leech, MP for Manchester Withington, voted in Parliament recently to sell off UK forests. A lot of people have come up to me in the street and asked, "why did John Leech vote to sell off the forests?" (as though it were somehow my fault!). I actually wrote to Mr Leech and asked him why he voted the way that he did. I have now received a reply from him in which he explained that the vote that he participated in was not a vote to implement the proposals set out by Defra, but a vote of opposition brought forward by the Labour Party. Mr Leech spoke in this debate and I re-print his speech below without further comment. If you have any questions, please address them to Mr Leech:

John Leech’s Speech:

(For the Hansard transcript including all interventions please go to: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm110202/debtext/110202-0003.htm)

I am glad to have the opportunity to take part in the debate. Although my constituency may not be the most directly affected by the proposals to sell off or lease woodland currently owned by the state, the issue has attracted considerable interest among hundreds of my constituents who are rightly concerned about the impact that such a sale might have. There is little doubt that there has been much speculation, and even scaremongering, about what may or may not happen to public forests. I have received hundreds of e-mails from constituents, some of whom have been led to believe that whole swathes of woodland will be razed to the ground to make way for housing developments, golf courses and leisure clubs.

Other constituents have sent e-mails suggesting that forests are going to be closed off to the public and surrounded by 10-foot fences, but that is clearly not the case. Unfortunately, the Labour party has been complicit in this misinformation and shameless in its attempts to scare people into believing that the future of our forests is under threat. Instead of participating constructively in the consultation on the future of our woodland, Labour Members simply choose to try to score cheap political points by tabling an Opposition day motion to grab the headlines. That is why I certainly will not be voting for Labour's motion and why I will support the Government's amendment, which exposes the disgraceful sell-off of thousands of acres of public woodland by the previous Labour Government without any of the protection being put in place and promised under the coalition Government's consultation. However, I wish to go on record as welcoming the measured comments made by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) about staff at the Forestry Commission, which should be added to the consultation process.

I will never support the sell-off or leasing of woodland if I think that it will be detrimental to the long-term sustainability of the woodland and its biodiversity, and will threaten the access that people have enjoyed over a long period. What better safeguards will Minister's introduce to protect the land and access to it compared with those that we already have? These forests will outlive all of us in this Chamber today and the public want to know how long these safeguards will be in place. Can I be assured that, whichever organisation might take on the running of a public forest, these safeguards will remain in place for not only our lifetime, but centuries to come?

Guaranteeing the future of the woodland is important, but so, too, is the guardianship of that land in the meantime. There is a real fear that the trend to improve the forests will fade over time. What assurances can the Minister give that the woodland will not just be maintained as it is and that the new owners will be compelled to improve both access and the natural habitat? The public estate enjoys 40 million visits a year, a quarter of it is dedicated as a site of special scientific interest and it hosts a wealth of biodiversity. None of those things should be under threat, and they must flourish under this coalition Government.

One of the big unanswered questions is whether or not the private ownership or leasing of forest land will make the savings that the Government anticipate. I am not convinced that these proposals will save any money; they may end up leaving the Government with a bigger bill to maintain the forests, because the sale or lease of commercially attractive forests will mean that their revenue is no longer available to subsidise the running of heritage and other loss-making forests. That was the only sensible point made by the shadow Secretary of State.

I do not think we should be too precious about the model of ownership of our forests. The previous Government could not be trusted to safeguard the future of the public forests that have been sold off in the past 13 years. It is certainly not the case that the forests would be safer in Labour hands. Many might argue that the future of the forests would be more certain if they were run and managed by organisations such as the Woodland Trust or the National Trust. It is not the model of ownership that we should be precious about but the people, including the staff, and the organisations that might run the forests.

In my constituency, after the previous Labour Government closed my local hospital, Withington hospital, Paupers wood on that site was put up for sale. Like many others, I expressed grave concerns about what that might mean for the future of that relatively small piece of woodland. However, the sale of that land to one of my constituents, Mary, resulted in enormous benefit for the community. That area of woodland, which had not been maintained for years and had been inaccessible to local people, is now available for local community groups to enjoy and for schools to use for outdoor classrooms. The woodland is well managed and is now sustainable for the future. That would not have happened without that sale. It is not simply a case of public ownership being good and private ownership being bad. This debate should be about what is best for individual woodlands and communities and about securing the future of our forests for generations to come.

Posted by Dave Bishop, February 2011

Chorlton Shafted Again - No Village Green Status for Hardy Farm

Last year six Chorlton residents applied for Village Green status for Hardy Farm. Some of you may remember that in 2009/10 this area was the subject of a fierce planning battle between the vast majority of Chorlton residents and the West Didsbury and Chorlton Football Club, who own the land and had applied for planning permission to convert it into a vast sporting complex with several grass pitches, an Astroturf pitch and floodlights. In this case the local residents won a famous victory and planning permission was refused. Nevertheless, the club keeps coming back for more and in 2010 received planning permission to install floodlights at their existing ground at the end of Brookburn Road – again in the face of fierce opposition. To many of us granting planning permission for this scheme and not for the earlier scheme made little sense. The application for Village Green status was a brave attempt to protect this much loved area of local green space from further damaging developments.

In order to proceed with the application it was necessary to show that the former owners of the land, UMIST, had, or had not, erected “permissive signs” on the land at some point in the past. This question was addressed at a ‘Non-statutory Public Enquiry’, held before Mr Vivian Chapman QC, at Chorlton Irish Club in January of this year. Mr Chapman concluded that UMIST had erected two signs in the 1970s and even though these signs had been grafittied over and had been illegible for a long time they still counted in Law and that the application for Village Green status should be rejected (please take this point up with lawyers and not with me!).
The matter was put before the City Council’s Licensing and Appeals Committee on Monday and the Committee accepted Mr Chapman’s conclusion and rejected the application. Chorlton Councillor Victor Chamberlain represented the applicants before the Committee and I have published his account verbatim below. Looking at the voting pattern shown below I can only conclude that we Chorlton residents have been the victims of petty political point scoring here. But having said that I’m not going to discuss politics any further in this forum and leave you to draw your own conclusions.
In what follows the term, “the Meadows” refers specifically to that part of Chorlton Meadows known as Hardy Farm.

I'm very sorry to report that the Licensing and Appeals Committee have accepted Mr Chapman's recommendation and have decided not to register the Meadows as a village green.

Mr Turley spoke first and said he had very little to add as the item had been considered by a QC and he supported the findings; he encouraged the Committee to support that recommendation.

Thanks to everyone who sent me comments to make at the Committee; I incorporated all of them into what I said. In summary I raised our objections about the lack of signs and their illegibility and abandonment. I challenged Mr Iredale's evidence and the photos from May 2008. I told the Committee that they have a duty to consider the substantive issue in detail. I asked the Committee to give more weight to the evidence of the Applicants and the public; and told the Committee that by accepting the recommendation they would be choosing to disbelieve the direct testimony of hundreds of Chorlton Residents. I urged them to reject the recommendation and reconsider the application with a mind to registering the Meadows as a village green.

Cllr Sheila Newman also spoke she said it would be a shame if the application fell at its first hurdle. She also said she wished the Committee was looking at the wider issue and not examining just one point in the application.


The Committee Members then deliberated.

Cllr Firth expressed concern that this application was being considered only on the signs. She asked what would happen if the Committee recommended further consideration.

The response from Mr Stoney was that there were strict conditions about what was classed as a village green; and because of the signs had existed the officers concluded that the Application was fatally flawed.

Cllr Helen Fisher said that she had lived in Chorltonville a number of years ago and used the Meadows regularly then. She said that in the whole time she lived there she did not see the signs and therefore understood and sympathised with Applicants' and Residents' accounts.

Cllr Chowdhury argued that WDCAFC took over the land in 2009 and so they had a duty of care to ensure the land had sufficient notices. He said that Chapman's report was based on the Balance of Probabilities and so there is an element of doubt which meant he would not be supporting he recommendation.

Cllr Burns asked what the normal way of providing Notices on the land was. He was informed there was no normal way and so the onus was on the Applicants to prove that there were not suitable Notices on the land throughout the period.

A number of Labour Councillors then spoke to say they supported the recommendation and that they do not consider the land meets the defined definition of a village green.

Mr Turley then responded to some of the points and said that it was private land that had been acquired to provide playing fields. He said there wasn't and won't be any attempt to prevent public access. He said the land would be 'improved' as the Club would protect it. He said that the Public will be able to use the fields as long as they don't damage them.

The Committee then voted.

Against the Recommendation (3): Firth (Liberal Democrat), H Fisher (Liberal Democrat), Chowdhury (Liberal Democrat)
Accept the Recommendation (5): Burns (Labour), Carmody (Labour), Longsden (Labour), O'Callaghan (Labour), Smith (Labour)


As I was leaving the Committee Room Mr Turley stopped me and told me to stop trying to 'perpetuate the myth that the land will be fenced off'. I said I had not done this and was against development of this meadow because I felt it was going to be restrictive to normal people being able to use the land and could be harmful to the local biodiversity and botany. He was clearly very bitter about past events.
We then had a chat and he made it quite clear that he is intending to create pitches on the land very soon. He reiterated that it is private land and the Club can do what it wants with the land; but he did express a wish to engage the Community and end the animosity. I said I would mention this to you all and muted that maybe it would be worth initiating regular meetings with the local community to discuss issues at the club. I said this because I attend a quarterly meeting the Chorlton Irish Club has with the local neighbours where they air their concerns, problems and complaints and the two sides work together to solve them. It works well because the Club listens to the local community and takes action based on what they say to reduce disturbance. Whilst past experience of WDCAFC suggests this may not work I would be interested to hear your opinion.

I'm afraid I don't know where we go from here; presumably we could challenge this decision with a Judicial Review. I would happy to meet up to discuss any potential options.

If you are a Chorlton resident and/or a user of Chorlton Meadows, and feel as strongly about this as I do, I urge you to write to both your local Councillor and to your MP. No matter how pessimistic you may feel there is no excuse for doing nothing!

Posted by Dave Bishop, February 2011

Flooding and Gulls at Fletcher Moss

I took a walk along the river bank to Didsbury and Fletcher Moss park the other day. The sports fields on either side of Stenner Lane were still under water as a result of the heavy rain and flooding of a couple of weeks ago. I must say that the whole scene looked dramatic and spectacular but what added to the drama were huge flocks of gulls which had congregated on the fields. I think that they were mainly Black-headed Gulls - but I'm not too hot on gulls. They were extremely noisy and were occasionally 'spooked' by something and then took off in great wheeling clouds. I assume that they were feeding on worms and other invertebrates driven to the surface by the flood-waters.

Of course these fields were once water meadows and have been regularly inundated like this for centuries. Water meadows used to be among our most biodiverse habitats, but a few decades ago these particular meadows were converted into regularly mown sports fields - which are virtual wildlife deserts. I wouldn't mind but they don't even seem to get used much - perhaps a few hours a year by a few young men. After the recent floods they are bursting with life (i.e. bird life) again, for a few weeks, before going back to boring, lifeless mown grass.

But I believe that the Environment Agency have now got plans for massive engineering works to 'protect' these sports fields from flooding. Several of these fields are rugby fields and, like golfers, rugby players tend to be influential people - so their playgrounds need to be protected, at all costs, from the inconvenient 'forces of nature' (even though it could be argued that establishing a playground in a floodplain, and expecting it to remain flood-free, is arrogant and silly!).

I feel more sympathy for the allotment holders of the adjacent Stenner Lane Allotments whose plots were also flooded. At least growing vegetables on an allotment is a healthy and sustainable activity and allotments are also much richer in wildlife than sports fields. I believe, though, that the allotment holders have been told, by the EA, not to eat their carefully nurtured vegetables because they might be contaminated by sewage and heavy metals. And there was I thinking that the Mersey was now a clean and healthy river - silly me! Perhaps the EA should be expending more effort in stopping sewage and heavy metals getting into the river, rather protecting a few rarely used sports fields ... ?

Dave Bishop, February 2011

Wild Flower Meadows by Charlotte Abbas

This is an article by Chorlton resident and FoCM member, Charlotte Abbas. Charlotte is also a member of The Friends of Hough End Clough and The Friends of the Fallowfield Loop. Like me she deplores the continuing destruction of our local biodiversity through over-development, mis-management, ignorance and neglect. I agree with every word of the following article - Ed.

In Britain we have lost enormous areas that used to be wildflower-rich grasslands. This was mainly because of intensive farming and the liberal use of herbicides. Have you noticed the uniformly green fields while driving or being driven around the countryside? Not a buttercup or dandelion in sight! There were also lots of pockets of underused land – often considered as 'derelict' around towns and cities that provided a home for a great variety of wildflowers. But much of this has disappeared under concrete for houses, roads, runways, supermarkets etc. or just been 'tidied' up e.g. landscaped with regularly cut grass or ornamental shrubs.

It is not just the wildflowers that we have lost but the whole biodiversity of these places – the flowers being just the most eye-catching and pleasing aspect. There was a host of insects (grasshoppers, bees, butterflies, moths, to name a few) that provided food for birds, bats, amphibians; other birds, field mice and voles ate the seeds of grasses and plants, and in turn fell prey to foxes, owls, kestrels.

What can be done to reverse this trend or at least mitigate for the loss? Last year I went to Germany in spring. In the cities you find housing estates with large apartment blocks. In between them are what would here be closely cut lawns but there the grass was left to grow and it was full of wildflowers: cowslips, celandine, lady's smock and so much more. Back here in Manchester on my way to town on the bus I passed Hulme along Princess Road. Lots of lovely meadow buttercups, and along came the lawnmowers and chopped off their heads. Why? Could we not enjoy the beauty of nature in our cities? I know, there are people who are used to short uniformly green lawns and find it disconcerting when nature makes a mess of this. But maybe if they realized how artificial this is, how barren and poor compared with a lawn full of flowers, bees buzzing, butterflies, they would change their minds? Let's try it out. Especially now that we are expecting cutbacks everywhere, saving on petrol alone would be good for the Council's coffers and the environment.

Creating or maintaining a meadow takes some effort. I will not go into the 'creation’ bit here.
Maintenance is basically mowing at the right time of year and removing the cuttings. The time to cut is when the seeds have ripened, the second half of August is usually okay. Mowing much later is not a good idea. In late summer the grasses will still grow, certain moths and butterflies lay their eggs on grasses or their caterpillars overwinter in amongst the plants, invertebrates and even small mammals like somewhere to hide in the winter. When the cuttings are left on the ground they will add nutrients to the soil which is not desirable because it will encourage tougher grasses and plants to dominate and squeeze out the more dainty ones.

I would love to see more wildflowers in our city landscape and with them greater biodiversity in general. Maybe the term 'meadow' is a bit ambitious but let's try to be less tidy, give nature a chance, even our gardens could be so much more interesting instead of fighting 'weeds' we learned to appreciate them for the little gems they really are. This also applies to municipal green spaces. Could we come up with a mowing regime in some parks where there are paths cut through the grass and then the grass is cut after the flowers have shed their seeds. I realise it takes a bit of an effort to get that right. There are some people of a certain age who might remember lying in long grass in those endless summers 'we used to have' surrounded by flowers and beautiful grasses buzzing with bees and butterflies. How many children can experience this simple pleasure now?

Charlotte Abbas, February 2011