Representation by Lesley Mason
- Date submitted
- 12 March 2021
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
Swanscombe supports nationally important Open mosaic habitat on previously developed land, coastal habitats, grasslands, scrub and wetlands. In particular the brownfield habitat (OMHPD) is easily undervalued as waste ground but is extremely valuable for biodiversity. These large areas of habitat mosaics are exactly the kind of areas that the UK should be valuing for their contribution to helping us achieve our commitments to Climate change and Biodiversity targets, provide Ecosystem Services and build back greener. The importance of the habitats and species at Swanscombe is underlined by Natural England recommending that Swanscombe be declared a Site of Special Scientific Interest- we must protect our most important wildlife sites from being lost. The recent notification of the site as a SSSI make it essential that the application be re-submitted. Swanscombe supports a nationally important assemblage of ispecies including the Distinguished jumping spider, Marsh harriers, Bearded tit, Nightingales and Black redstart. As a botanist I have been privileged to visit the site and hope to do so again in the future to see some of the rare plants present at the site including Round-leaved Wintergreen, Common Sea-lavender, Sickle Medick, Sand Lucerne, Yellow Vetchling, Hairy Vetchling and Man orchid. Swanscombe has locally important populations of reptiles, bats, Water vole and Otter. Swanscombe peninsula is an inappropriate site for a theme park. Covid has shown us how important it is to take nature into account, how valuable it is to us and how we ignore it at our peril. Future pandemics could close a theme park or make it economically unviable and by then we would have lost the valuable habitats and species forever along with all of the economic services and benefits they provide. As a nation should we really be valuing short-term economic gains over long-term gains for biodiversity, climate and future generations well being? I would argue No, it does not make economic sense.