THE CONSERVATION AREA AND THREE CORNERED COPSE...

It will come as no surprise to residents of Woodland Drive that they are living in a designated conservation area. Well, at least some of them are, which brings the planning and development complexities to any proposed modifications to these impressive buildings.

Woodland Drive, framed by Three Cornered Copse

However, what may come as a surprise to others is that Three Cornered Copse is also included in the same Woodland Drive Conservation Area. The area was designated in 1996, and included the copse, because it "provides an important green space" to the buildings, and is an impressive backdrop to enhance the houses.

The character definition and the map of the area is online and clearly shows the boundaries pushing right to the northern edge, where it meets the Dyke Road Avenue/King George VI junction.

The objective of a conservation area is to prevent any alterations which do not "preserve or enhance" its contents. This does of course provide a defence of considerable weight against the proposed annexation of our public space by the proposed Toad's Hole developers. Many objections mentioning this have already been registered, but there is still time to add more, so please add your comments if you support the preservation of this vital strip of the copse.

Another way of destroying the copse is lighting a fire under the trees, and unfortunately we have had two recent incidents where this has occurred, one involving the Fire Service. The vegetation is tinder dry at this part of the season; it would take very little to catch fire across the forest floor, with the dry wood lying there. It's also against bye-laws to light fires in public parks, for this reason.

A recent study in the journal Science was widely reported in the press, where it documented the calculations that prove by planting enough trees we can eliminate most of the excess CO2 causing the global warming. "Enough" being actually many many billions of trees, and it showed where the more productive areas of the world would be. Unfortunately Three Cornered Copse wasn't mention by name, but it's gratifying to learn that our recent planting of several hundred trees in the past 18 months has not only been improving the habitat for dormice, but also saving the planet.

Another way is using a search engine called ecosia.org, which donates its profits to tree planting. Search the web and save the planet at the same time. What could be easier?

Simon Baxendale