Representation by Dr Susan Mitchell
- Date submitted
- 13 June 2024
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
I am a frequent visitor to the Crossness Nature Reserve and attend walks led by volunteer wildlife experts. It does not make sense to me that a project whose aim is to save the planet by capturing CO2 aims to do that by destroying an irreplaceable grazing marsh that is home to rare wildlife, and when the marshland is already a CO2 store. Cory admitted at their presentation on 13th September 2023 that Crossness Nature reserve is one of the last areas of grazing marsh in the Thames estuary. This type of grazing marsh is irreplaceable, and so I strongly object to their intention to build on it. The land Cory are taking from Peabody (Norman Road Field) to 'increase' the nature reserve is not grazing marsh and no amount of 'enhancement' will mitigate the loss. Although Cory say the additional area will be protected these are just words with no guarantee of them being honoured. Crossness Nature Reserve supports extremely rare and critically endangered wildlife such as water vole, shrill carder bee (the UK's rarest bumblebee) as well as being home to a pair of resident breeding barn owls, an overnight dunlin roost and the very rare frog rush plant. The latter was previously thought extinct in Kent. Cory do not have a proven track record on their care for wildlife. the Borax Field they own, which had nesting Skylark until last year, is now filled with construction rubble. I have seen no evidence of Cory working with the local ecological expertise available to them. Cory state their CCS project has the potential to capture around 1.3 million tonnes of CO2 per year. But marshland like Crossness Nature Reserve is also a store of CO2 and this has not only not been factored in, it has been ignored.