TORIES BOW TO LIB DEM DEMAND FOR BIODIVERSITY STUDY OF CRANE VALLEY

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Sat 28th Jun 2003

After further pressure from Lib Dem Councillors Brian Miller and Martin Elengorn and residents, the Council has belatedly commissioned a biodiversity and ecological study of the Crane Valley.

Commented Martin Elengorn " Only the day before the Environment Scrutiny and Overview Committee did the Tories yield up Aitken LeClerq's Report on the Crane Valley. This is attached. It admits (end of 2.6) that the Council did not ask for an ecological appraisal.

Under pressure the Tories are now commissioning a study, though giving very little time for it.

It is also obvious from this document that the Adult College in Clifden Road was not in the Study Area and that is why the consultants did not seek their views. The consultants were not told that the driving force behind the whole exercise was the need to find capital receipts and sites for new secondary schools.

The whole Scrutiny Committee was deeply uneasy about the whole rushed exercise and the fact that none of the four Options was achievable unless there was a major change of heart by the Governors of the two Colleges within 5 weeks. Summing up Committee chairman, Cllr Alan Butler, said that the meeting had considered the proposals to be premature, that a further review of the area was needed to take on board Option 5 presented by local residents, that while there was support for moving the Depot, the concerns about removing Metropolitan Open Land status elsewhere in the Crane Valley had not been overcome.

Another important item at the Scrutiny Committee was a Borough Open Spaces Strategy. While this was generally welcomed it was felt that there was inadequate mention of biodiversity, sustainability and nature conservation. On a straw vote most of the Committee expressed the view that the administration should drop its ridiculous embargo of the use of these words and that the document should be adjusted accordingly."