THE BUSY SUMMER COPSE

The summer is a quiet time for the Friends of Three Cornered Copse, but not for the Copse itself, which does what it does best at this time of year. That is, being used and visited by anyone and everyone.

More folks than ever visit the copse in these warmer weeks, whether cycling, walking with dogs, or building camps and dens with the dead wood in the dense woodland. No workdays for us in the summer, but each of us pick up litter and clear footpaths from time to time, to keep it usable and pleasant. (Note: The drink of choice for copse users seems to be Stella Artois these days, particular by users of the benches at the edge of the green). A big thank you to all who collect bags of litter as they wander through, it saves time in the autumn when we have the big clear up.

Litter collecting is getting very popular these days. The councils Tidy Up Team of volunteers is well supported and they descend on the spaces and parks in our city from time to time to purge the area of plastics and paper.

The tree canopy is still quite dense, but occasionally the strong sunlight pierces through, to show the fading greens of the late summer foliage. The copse is an important food larder for birds and small mammals at this time. The hedges are full of berries and seeds at the moment, and the birds are gorging themselves after the stress of nesting, getting ready for migration and the colder nights and the shorter days. Even now some of the trees are starting to fade to light brown.

We are planning our workdays for the autumn, the next one is on 21 September, then 12 October. As usual, more information is at http://www.threecorneredcopse.org.uk/, as usual all are welcome.

Our campaign to protect the copse from a proposed development continues, many comments on the planning application help enormously. A member of our friends group mentioned that I hadn't included the link to the planning site to make comments on the Toads Hole proposal to annex part of our copse. With apologies, I include the link below, to search for "Toads Hole". If you are reading this on a paper copy, just navigate to Brighton & Hove planning applications, search for applications and enter the "Toads Hole" keywords. The link is also on our facebook page.

https://planningapps.brighton-hove.gov.uk/online-applications/search.do?action=simple&searchType=Application

Simon Baxendale