CROSSNESS UPDATE, DECEMBER 2019. From Karen Sutton, Reserve Manager .
Dear Friends of Crossness Nature Reserve,
I hope you have enjoyed all that autumn offers at Crossness, and are now getting ready for those crisp, frosty, winter mornings, which can be really quite lovely on the reserve. I just wanted to provide an update of things that have been going on, and things that are due to take place at Crossness over the coming months. In particular, please be aware of significant footpath closures as detailed in the ‘Environment Agency works’ section below and the map included in this post. This could significantly impact visitors, so please do make yourself familiar with these plans which start next month.
Very rare plant species:
It has been discovered that Crossness is the only known location in Kent for the rare plant species Frog Rush (Juncus ranarius)! Recorded by botanist Rodney Burton in the West Paddock, Geoffrey Kitchener (Kent county recorder) has subsequently written the draft report (included in the post below) to go in the County rare species register. It details the fact that Frog Rush was recorded in Kent in 1862 in Deal, and later at Sandwich Bay in 1947 where a gathered specimen is now part of a collection in National Museum Wales.
Clearly this find is really rather special. A plant of damp brackish coastal habitats, typically on mud-flats and sand-flats above the high-water mark, at Crossness, Rodney recorded many patches at the edge of muddy depressions which are often water-filled. The report states that the bare/open ground maintained by the West Paddock’s water levels and grazing regime (and subsequent trampling by horses) seems to be favourable to this species where bare soil is available for germination (the species is an annual).
The water levels in the West Paddock are primarily maintained by a wind pump which abstracts from the Great Breach Dyke. This will almost certainly help provide the elevated salinity which this plant appears to favour. The high water levels in winter certainly provide areas of bare ground in the spring and early summer, and the paddock is only lightly grazed by horses for three months of the year.
Being wind-powered, our water pumping regime is not always stable, and with the possibility of forthcoming development on Cory Field North and Cory Field South, in addition to the proposals for Cory’s Riverside Energy Park immediately north of the West Paddock, there are concerns that freshwater run-off from these developments could reduce the salinity required by species such as Frog Rush, as well as the saline-dependent red-list invertebrates in our ditch network.
View at Crossness
Cory Riverside Energy Park proposal:
The hearing process – in which the Examining Authority on behalf of the Secretary of State examined the development proposals put forward by Cory Energy to build a second waste incinerator and ancillary buildings immediately adjacent Crossness Nature Reserve (north of the West Paddock, and east of Sea Wall Field) – drew to a close on Wednesday 9th October. There was an awful lot of work involved in fighting this proposal throughout the summer, and I owe a huge amount of gratitude to Ralph Todd particularly, who submitted written representations at various stages on behalf of the Friends of Crossness Nature Reserve. The Examiner is due to complete his report and provide his recommendation to grant or deny the application by 9th January 2020, at which time it will go to the Secretary of State for a final decision. It might be some time before we hear the final outcome, but I will keep you updated.
IMPORTANT footpath closures/Environment Agency works:
Following my previous communication regarding the Environment Agency’s preliminary works in early November, I am now in receipt of more detailed proposals coming up which will have a greater impact on visitors to Crossness Nature Reserve than first envisaged.
Unfortunately, a considerable stretch of the Thames Path – between the former Thamesview Golf Course to the west, and Cory’s waste incinerator in Belvedere to the east – will remain closed for up to six months, starting January 2020, and will not be open at weekends as previously thought.
Additionally, the EA’s contractors have applied for a closure of the footpath (Public Footpath 2) that runs north from our Protected Area gates, past the Great Breach Pumping Station, and up to the Thames Path. I include here the footpath diversion that they are putting in place, which appears to be a 57 minute route down to Yarnton Way and then up Norman Road to the back of Cory’s ‘Riverside Resource Recovery Facility’.
This urgent work is required in order to desilt the gravity outfall culverts and chamber, and to install a new penstock, but it does mean that there will be no access to the foreshore from Crossness Nature Reserve, and no access to the reserve from the Thames Path for the duration of this project. This is going to be a massive blow for visitors during an important period for wetland bird viewing, and I can only apologise in advance. Due to silt being tankered away off site, there will also be a lot of vehicle movement between the work area in Sea Wall Field/Thames Path and the Norman Road gates, during January and February. If the schedule doesn’t slip, vehicle movement beyond that will reduce, but this will have an impact on what we can offer in terms of winter events and volunteer days on the nature reserve due to health and safety implications.
Diversion map from the EA included in post (below).
Enhancements and work coming up:
Recent visitors to Crossness may have noticed that the bird hide exterior has been cleaned-up and painted, and that there is a new boardwalk replacing the stepping stones on Crossness Southern Marsh as you approach Bridge Meadow from the west (image below). Some new reptile hibernacula and log piles have also been created at the bottom of the Protected Area.
New Southern Marsh boardwalk.
Work coming up includes surfacing our circular path at the bottom of the Protected Area, and resurfacing the section of Footpath 2 that runs south from the Protected Area gates to the kissing gates. A footpath diversion is having to be sought from the London Borough of Bexley for the latter, so timing of the works will be governed by this as well as contractor availability. I will keep you updated with regard to timings. The mini-beast area is also due to have the chestnut paling removed, and a funky new fence installed, possibly before Christmas.
Anti-social behaviour:
We have been having some trouble with anti-social behaviour on Crossness Southern Marsh from the adjacent Southmere Park and Southmere Green. Recent visitors may have seen the fence damage on the southern boundary but we are aware of this and will be getting this repaired. I would also like to ask visitors to the southern marsh to take extra special care when accessing the southern kissing gate from the adjacent Peabody Land as it is incredibly muddy and slippery at the moment.
Wildlife:
Our volunteer, Roger, has been hard at work collating all your wildlife records for the reserve and southern marsh. There is a lot of work involved in this, but the culmination of all that data input, is the tables (in the post, below) showing maximum count and monthly totals for both quarter 2 (Apr-Jun) and quarter 3 (Jul-Sept). These records include some great sightings, including the Great Reed Warbler from earlier this year, our first Small Heath butterfly, the first ‘modern’ Frog Rush record in Kent, lots of Barn Owl activity, and some rather rare invertebrates, including Shrill Carder Bee. Please do take a look, and thank you to all of you that contribute your sightings – these records are invaluable, thank you.
I will no doubt be in touch again soon with updates, but I just wanted to take this opportunity to wish everybody a wonderful Christmas and all the very best for the New Year.
Report from Ralph and Brenda Todd of the October 24th Bexley RSPB walk at Danson Park, of which the highlights were three Siskins a Teal and a Kingfisher.
The 2019 Good Parks for London report makes sobering reading for Bexley, which has been ranked 29th of the 33 Boroughs and City of London after scores were added up across ten different criteria. One of these was ‘Supporting Nature’, in which Bexley was placed in the third points range category of the four used, the fourth being no data/zero.
Bexley scored more poorly than a lot of more urbanised Boroughs on supporting nature in its parks and open spaces.
The poor ‘Supporting Nature’ performance will not come as a surprise to those who follow ‘Bexley Wildlife’, given that this was assessed by having an up to date Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) in place, together with the percentage of parks that have management plans which include BAP objectives and the percentage of Sites of Importance for Nature Conservation in positive conservation management. As ‘BW’ has highlighted before, Bexley Council’s BAP expired in 2015, and it has made no attempt since to sit down or otherwise communicate with those outside of the Council responsible for delivering aspects of it about evaluating progress and updating the document. ‘BW’ has also published the results of a Bexley Natural Environment Forum freedom of information request made a few years ago which revealed that 80% of SINCS wholly or jointly owned by the Council had no management plan. The few that did were almost all several years out of date. That situation has not changed. Clearly you cannot build BAP objectives into non-existent management plans.
The other considerations taken into account were Public satisfaction, Awards for quality (e.g. Green Flags), Collaboration, Events, Health, fitness and well-being, Community involvement, Skills development, Sustainability and Strategic planning. In all but Collaboration, and in Events, where Bexley was put in the top points category, the Borough again managed to secure only the lowest score category above zero.
According to the report, which shows that the criticisms of Bexley’s biodiversity and habitat management planning and performance are well-founded, and not just the preserve of what the Council may prefer to dismiss as an awkward ‘vocal minority’ of residents, Good Parks for London is supported by all London Boroughs and several other partner organisations.
Crossness site manager Karen Sutton reports on events, wildlife, upcoming site maintenance activity and impending disruption to the Thames path arising from Environment Agency works.
Events:
Crossness hosted the ‘BEXLEY GREEN DRINKS’ on 11th Sept, which is the social and networking event for local wildlife, conservation and sustainability people in the Borough, and a migrant bird walk on the 19th. Reports on these have appeared in previous ‘Bexley Wildlife’ posts.
Wildlife:
Ancient Greenfinch:
Our volunteer, Roger, a licenced bird ringer, received notification from the BTO that a Greenfinch ringed at Crossness on 30th October 2005 as a first year male was found dead (killed by a cat) in Thelwall, Warrington on 27th August 2019. Duration: 5049 days, Distance: 278 km. A 14 year old Greenfinch – quite a record!
Aquatic invertebrate surveys:
We commissioned some aquatic invertebrate surveys (primarily for beetles) back in Autumn 2016 and Spring 2017 across the nature reserve and the southern marsh (12 sampling stations on each site), which revealed some rather interesting invertebrates, of which a good number are considered nationally scarce. When we experienced a pollution incident from the adjacent sewage treatment works in winter 2017, we decided that it would be a good idea to repeat those surveys to give us a clearer idea of the impacts, so we repeated the surveys in Autumn 2018 and Spring 2019.
Although there was the expected and marked differences at individual sampling stations, overall the repeat surveys produced an aquatic species list of high quality, with the species index score showing a slight improvement! So the good news is that there was a remarkable similarity between the two surveys, and that the entomologists think that the pollution incident has had minimal long-term effects – phew!
The full report is provided as a pdf (at the foot of this post) for those of you that might be interested in the detail. The report concludes that the aquatic habitats at Crossness remain largely in good health and that the areas most affected by the pollution incident are recovering well.
Work coming up:
There’s a lot of work coming up on site over the next few weeks and months. Work that you will see going on, includes:
* The installation of a small boardwalk to get visitors over the flooded section of path on Crossness Southern Marsh (the location in which there are currently stepping stones) – next couple of weeks
* Painting/treating the exterior of the bird hide – next couple of weeks/months, depending on weather conditions
* Cut and removal of vegetation on the nature reserve and southern marsh paddocks, involving large agricultural machinery – next couple of weeks
Other work coming up, but not yet timed-in, includes:
* Replacement of the mini-beast area fencing; digging out of Phragmites/Typha on the Education Pond
* Installation of an access structure to the wader scrape island
* Surfacing of the circular path in the Protected Area South
* Resurfacing of Footpath 2 that runs alongside Great Breach Dyke West (between the Protected Area and the southern area kissing gate)
* Ditch dredging on Crossness Southern Marsh
In addition to our work, there’s a large Environment Agency project coming up. I have mentioned this before, but the plans are now longer and more detailed. It involves the refurbishment of the Great Breach Pumping Station and significant work to the outfall. The schedule currently shows work taking place between December 2019 and April 2020. For at least some of that time, there will be path closures in place. Our section of the Thames Path will be closed, and unfortunately, the diversion is long, involving a 57 minute long walk. My understanding is that the ‘Urgent Works’ is the part of the programme that will most affect visitors. This will involve closure of the Thames Path, but also tankering away of the removed silt via our main access path and the Norman Road gates.
The EA has said that it hopes to close the footpath between the east of Riverside Resource Recovery Ltd. and a point immediately to the west of Crossness Sewage treatment plant, with a diversion route signposted. Prior to the closure, it will put up notices along the path to make people aware of the closure when it comes into effect …. However, the footpath will most likely be open at weekends and outside of working hours and the nature reserve will be accessible to members of the public along the access track from Norman Road during weekdays when works are ongoing.
Report and selected photos from the Friends of Crosness Nature reserve bird walk on September 19th follow. There was a good turnout of 17 people, but little sign of the migrant species that had been hoped for. Nevertheless Hobbies, Peregrines, a Barn Owl and a Yellow Wagtail were all seen on a fine sunny day.
The comments by Friends of Crossness Nature Reserve on Cory’s detailed plans for its proposed four storey data centres next to Crossness Local Nature Reserve are reproduced below, along with the personal opinions of Site Manager Karen Sutton (whilst her employer Thames Water is objecting to aspects of the second incinerator scheme, it has not expressed a view on the data centres). These are similar to those submitted by Bexley Natural Environment Foru that were posted a few days ago.
There is significant anger and frustration at Cory’s lack of meaningful consultation with the Friends Group, the failure to provide any adequate ‘mitigation’ for the loss of habitat for species that are nationally, regionally and /or locally rare, the pathetic ‘green wall’ and ‘green roof’ provision, the massive visual impact and the ‘fake views’ in which Cory’s artist’s impressions provide only very misleading images of the finished project. The authors slam much of what is in Cory’s detailed plans as a ‘tick box’ exercise. The authors call upon Bexley to withdraw outline planning permission due to Cory’s failure to meet the Council’s conditions that are supposed to be satisfied before final approval is granted.
Bexley Natural Environment Forum has responded to Cory’s detailed proposals for two huge four-storey data centre buildings on Erith Marshes at Norman Road, adjacent to Crossness Local Nature Reserve, which set out how it intends to comply with the conditions imposed by Bexley Council’s planning committee when it granted outline permission. The Forum’s submission is provided in full below. To help others submit comments, we are working on a summary version which will appear on our Facebook page shortly. Comments should go to developmentcontrol@bexley.gov.uk by August 17th with 15/02926/OUTM02 in the subject line.
If Cory cannot meet those conditions, the development should be rejected. Important Open Mosaic habitat, found to be of at least London level importance for invertebrates will be in large part destroyed, known rarities such as Shrill Carder Bee are not catered for, Skylark nesting and Barn Owl foraging habitat will be lost and not replaced, non-native plantings of limited wildlife value will be made and the hugely negative visual impact cannot be ‘mitigated’ away. The Forum therefore finds that Cory’s scheme will still result in a significant biodiversity loss, contrary to the requirements of the National Planning Policy Framework and the Bexley Local Plan, and fails to meet a number of the conditions.
It has made it clear to the Council that if Cory cannot provide empirical evidence regarding any claims of no biodiversity loss or net gain, that it expects Council Officers to do so (putting the supporting data in the public domain) if they re-state them as the Council’s own position. It has also said that seeking to ‘off-set’ the biodiversity damage outside of Bexley would be in contravention of the Council’s policy of protecting and enhancing biodiversity within the Borough’s own boundary.
The company has yet to submit a Biodiversity Management Plan and the Forum has written to the Council raising concerns that this in itself would appear to be in breach of a condition setting out deadlines in the planning process.
There was a time delay in Cory’s documentation appearing on Bexley Council’s planning webpages. The Council has extended the deadline for comments to August 17th accordingly, but only after badgering by campaigners.
FIELDFARES AT THAMES ROAD WETLAND, AS REDWINGS ALSO COME INTO LONDON One of our volunteers, who does frequent wildlife checks at the site, has reported 3 Fieldfares at Thames Road Wetland on 3rd November.Fellow thrush species the Redwing and continennetal Blackbirds also come into Britain from Scandinavia at this time of year.Just great that they are met with volleys of fireworks, which have been shown by radar studies to disrupt avian migration. And of course it isn't just November 5th anymore. There have been 13 nights of fireworks being let off in the Barnehurst area since the 16th of October. All the government intends to do is tinker round the edges of firework regulations and do nothing about the escalating frequency of use - effectively normalising night after night of nuisance, wildlife and pet disturnbance and littering by a minority of addicts, especially after September and into early January.An American Wigeon x Eurasian Wigeon hybrid was seen at the birding hotspot of Crayford Marshes on 31st October by Tim Bray.Michael Mac spotted an Arctic Skua chasing gulls over both Crayford and Dartford Marshes on 29th October. It was still off Rainham Marshes on 2nd November.A Yellow-browed Warbler was reported from Sidcup on the 7th and 8th.... See MoreSee Less
These two winter thrushes are relatively easy to tell from each other. However, Redwings can be confused with Song Thrushed, whilst Fieldfares are similar in size and appearance to Mistle Thrushes. L...
FRIENDS OF THE CRAY AT CRAYFORD - Friday 6th November. Working along By-way 105.Meet 10am where Footpath 106 meets Barnes Cray Road and then going to By-way 105 to work.We will be cutting up tree branches from where the Council cut down a tree that had fallen across the footpath, with the aim of getting to the sacks of fly tipping and litter that are currently inaccessible & using the branches to build up our deadhedge.Wear work clothes and bring any refreshments needed. No special skills required.Best wishesSarah ... See MoreSee Less
Can Green Roofs Function as True Ecosystems? FREE ONLINE EVENTWednesday, November 25 • 1 PM - 2 PM GMTEva Drukker (Wageningen University) explores the ecology of green roofs. Can they operate as functional ecosystems?Green roofs, exposed to wind, heat, and drought, might seem like unlikely places for ecological development. But can they become self-sustaining ecosystems? How do they interact with the surrounding flora and fauna? How quickly do they develop, and which insects choose to live there? Crucially, which design choices make these elevated habitats most supportive for biodiversity?... See MoreSee Less
Friends of the Shuttle clear up litter on the Cray at Hall Place.