More detail and insight on the potential wildlife bridge at Sherborne.

This is a follow-up to my last post where I raised some questions about a county council strategy that seemed to include the possibility of a wildlife bridge over the A40 at Sherborne.

I engaged with the Gloucestershire Local Nature Partnership, who have a coordinating role in this. Although remember, the strategy document is a County Council document. Here is my polite email to them and their response below.

We have been members of the Glos Local Nature Partnership for several months. I have received a few emails since our application and was unable to attend last month’s meeting.

I am writing to you to express some concern regarding a specific measure recommended in the Gloucestershire Local Nature Recovery Strategy. 

We would like to raise this matter with the GLNP as an organisation with significant and appropriate influence.  We completed the member survey a couple of weeks ago but this is a new concern.   Our concern is not with the measure itself but with the lack of local consultation on it. Item 60 mentions consideration of a wildlife bridge over the A40 at Sherborne. Our concern is not whether this is a good or bad idea but the apparent absence of local consultation.

We note that the strategy, published in February and endorsed by the CDC in March, provides an Appendix detailing a consultation process. This process consulted 10 people who lived in the Cotswolds. While we respect the County Council’s decision to consult these individuals, we believe this tiny number cannot be considered representative in any useful sense and does not meet the definition of consultation for this ambitious and detailed strategy.   We have not been able to find more than one or two people in Sherborne who are aware of the strategy as a whole, and none are aware of the proposal for a wildlife bridge in Sherborne. It appears that the Sherborne Parish Council was not consulted or even informed.

Could the GLNP, of which we are a member, be asked to represent this concern to the County Council? Given that the strategy is to be revisited at least three to five years hence further consultation could take place during this period. This could include specific Parish Councils and local groups such as ours being involved in the local measures outlined in the strategy. The GLNP would be ideally placed to facilitate this.

Our concern is that the GLNP is otherwise simply endorsing a complex issue on our behalf and we are, to all intents and purposes, being kept in the dark. We note that the strategy claims to have community involvement and engagement at its core and this is essential both in principle and practice. Furthermore, this would be an opportunity to gain develop and encourage public support for a measure that will only succeed with local community support. Imposing it without consultation undermines the strategy’s objectives and potentially sets the community against this important environmental concept of connectivity.  Furthermore, involvement with the parish council and local groups delegates the otherwise expensive task of engaging a broader span of the local population that the survey authors may not have the resources to reach. 

We are keen to engage positively and proactively. (But may ask difficult questions)

Response this morning:

Thank you for your email and also thank you for responding to the recent consultation survey, with useful contributions.I will forward your email to Gloucestershire's Local Nature Recovery Officer so that she is aware that you have raised this concern. The Local Nature Partnership was commissioned by Gloucestershire County Council to coordinate the development of the Local Nature Recovery Strategy, so I worked on this at the time.  The inclusion of any measure at all for Green bridges and wildlife crossings was prompted by National Highways and National Rail asking all developing Local Nature Recovery Strategies nationally to put forward potential opportunity places for green bridges or wildlife crossings, should the opportunity, funding, need and/or prioritisation ever come together.  We were given a very short timescale by National Highways and National Rail, which doesn't help with consultation, and wanted to at least have Gloucestershire "on the list" rather than not.  Therefore the few areas highlighted are very speculative and none of them have any actual plans or development proposals.  Their purpose would be in case there are schemes put forward to majorly upgrade or change the road, then it has been highlighted that it would be a good idea to consider helping wildlife through wildlife crossings or green bridges.  Such a green bridge would not be created unless there is such a road re-development, in my view.  (The only example I know of in Gloucestershire at the moment, being the green bridge that is part of the air balloon junction redevelopment, although there may well be some lower impact wildlife crossings that I don't know about.) There were a range of ways we sought consultation on the strategy through its development, ahead of the final formal public consultation, and on more than one occasion Gloucestershire Association of Parish and Town Councils put out communications to their members about drafts, online meetings etc as well as alerting that the public consultation was starting.

So, I think then my personal interpretation of this is:

The County Council and others were bounced with this at short notice by Highways. I can't see it ever happening unless someone decides the A40 needs rebuilding. Such is the nature of County Council politics that they probably couldn't be as blunt as that when describing it, so it's sort of slipped in there and stayed. You can see that I raised the issue of consulting just 10 people in the Cotswolds on this, and you can see their reply. Logical, understandable, but frankly, a consultation it wasn't. Frankly, the whole story is a bit of a waste of time. But at least I think we have bottomed it out. It's beyond the remit of this Sherborne Brook Support Group email system to ask questions as to whether the County Council should develop policy this way or not, that's for other groups and other people to do. I'm sure you can come to your own conclusion on that. Next time you get someone canvassing for your vote, you can let them know your opinion directly and hold local representatives to account.