Category Archives: News

News

ProGaps -Protecting our Gaps and Green spaces

Posted on by

We have teamed up with conservation and amenity groups and residents’ associations all along the coast from Rustington to Worthing to resist, together, all attacks on our Gaps and other green spaces by housing developers and commercial enterprises. Every planning application in these areas will be opposed, and objection e mails and letters sent, to make it clear to the Councils, and to the Inspector in any appeal, that we all value the individual character of our villages and townships that is guaranteed by the Gaps between settlements, and the landscape, recreation and wild life habitat that these Gaps give us.

We all objected to Persimmon and their 475-house estate on Chatsmore Farm, to Redrow’s 74-house estate at Roundstone Farm (refused by Arun DC but allowed on appeal) and the 193-house estate at Rustington Golf Centre (refused by Arun DC but an appeal is in progress). We have all objected to the application for 70 houses at Lansdowne Nursery and we shall certainly all object if Rego Properties go ahead with their proposals for over 100 houses on Highdown Vineyard.

This is not an anti-Council campaign. We believe Arun DC and Worthing BC have the right policies and want to protect the Gaps as much as we do. Our campaign is there to support them by showing how overwhelming is the opposition to filling our green spaces with development.

For up-to-date information on the latest threats to our Gaps and green spaces, join Ferring Conservation Group and get regular newsletters with ProGaps news.

.

Great Tits

Posted on by

Parish Magazine Article September 2022

Great Tit by Michael Blencowe of the Sussex Wildlife Trust

 Just for the record; I’ve never trusted them. Unlike all the other familiar, friendly faces on my back garden bird table there’s just something about the Great Tit that’s always made me suspicious. Perhaps it’s my mistrust of uniforms. The Great Tit’s smart plumage with a collar, black tie and a glossy black cap makes them look too official, too authoritative. And that bright yellow chest? Far too garish for the garden.

Their behaviour isn’t exactly endearing either. Great Tits are the bullies on the bird table. They’ll aggressively assert their authority and violently peck at other birds as they plunder the peanuts. When a house-hunting Great Tit can’t find a suitable hole to nest in, it’ll simply evict a Blue Tit and move in.

Their dominance is also heard in spring when their two-note song, “Tea-cher! Tea-cher! Tea-cher!” rings out through our woodlands. It was this “Tea-cher!” that taught me my first lesson in bird song identification; an easily recognisable two-note war cry used to proclaim the tit’s territory. But I was soon to learn that not everything was how it seemed. Each male actually has an average of four different songs, which can be sung at three different tempos. This varied repertoire is a sly Beau Geste trick employed to trick other Great Tits into thinking that a woodland is more crowded than it really is. The birds who know the most tunes secure larger territories and breed more successfully. And it’s a trick that fools me each year too; if I don’t recognise a bird call in the woods it’s always a Great Tit.

 

Through aggression and deceit, these birds have successfully established an empire that spreads from England to China. And it’s from the far-flung corners of this empire that we’ve recently received reports of some rather worrying behaviour. From Finland came news of a group of Great Tits changing their vegan diet of seeds and nuts to something much more meaty: other birds. In Hungary, scientists made the chilling discovery of a population of Great Tits which have developed a taste for the brains of hibernating bats. Sure, these are isolated incidents at the moment but with human society plunging rapidly towards the abyss and an army of Great Tits acquiring a taste for blood and brains, is it unreasonable to hypothesise a post-apocalyptic future where humans are at the mercy of plagues of zombie Great Tits? Close your windows people – they’re coming for us!

Sussex Wildlife Trust is an independent charity caring for wildlife and habitats throughout Sussex. Founded in 1961, we have worked with local people for over half a century to make Sussex richer in wildlife. Please consider supporting our work. As a member you will be invited to join Michael Blencowe on our regular wildlife walks and also enjoy free events, discounts on wildlife courses, Wildlife magazine and our Sussex guide book, Discovering Wildlife.  It’s easy to join online at sussexwildlifetrust.org.uk/join

Butterfly Count on Highdown Hill – 25th July

Posted on by

Ferring Conservation Group regularly takes part in the annual nationwide Butterfly Conservation’s ‘Big Butterfly Count’, and 2022 was no exception. This important survey is aimed at helping conservationists establish the health of our environment by counting the amount and type of butterflies (and some day-flying moths) sighted throughout the UK.

Unfortunately the balmy, sunny day that encourages butterflies to take to the wing was not to be. Instead a dull and windy day greeted an enthusiastic group as they met in the carpark at Highdown Hill, although consequently their expectations were limited. As the group, led by Graham Tuppen ably assisted by Clive Hall and Peter and Ruth Dale, proceeded to the top of the hill following a path that was edged with large hawthorn and elder bushes, they were rewarded with the sight of a few Meadow Browns and Gatekeepers. It was reassuring to note a healthy Ash tree standing proud in the vicinity and as the group ventured further along the brow of the hill some Common Blues were seen plus a solitary Painted Lady and a Small Skipper. Heading eastwards a beautiful Silver-washed fritillary was spied by Clive Hall which rested just long enough for the rest of the party to also be enthralled by its beauty and was definitely a highlight of the morning.

Other welcome sightings were many wildflowers including a Round-headed Rampion, as well as Knapweed, Red Bartsia, Yellow Rattle, Agrimony (this plant is also known as ‘Church Steeple’ because of the shape of its spikes – all aerial parts of Agrimony emit sweet scent when they are crushed and due to the pleasant, apricot-like smell of the flowers it is often used for the preparation of potpourris). Along with Wild Carrot and Parsnip, the frothy yellow flowers of Ladies Bedstraw were evident and on a warm day these flowers fill the air with a sweet, honey-like scent.

As a firm reminder that many species of wildlife also share the wonderful habitat that the Southdown National Park provides, Swifts and a lone Skylark flew high above Highdown Hill while the familiar drilling sound of a Woodpecker could be distinctly heard. Heading through a partially wooded area on the lower slopes, a charm of striking Goldfinches flashed past (a ‘charm’ is the collective name for this particular bird). The climax to this interesting day came when Graham Tuppen observed, what he first thought was a small bird, but was in fact a Hummingbird Hawk Moth hovering around a Buddleia bush near to Highdown Tea Rooms (this day-flying moth has a wingspan of about two inches and uses its long proboscis to feed on the

nectar of tube-shaped flowers and is named for its similarity to Hummingbirds). This was a first sighting in the wild for Graham and he was suitably impressed.

To celebrate this unexpectedly successful morning several members of the Group partook in refreshments at the popular Tea Rooms before heading home to submit their sightings into the Butterfly Conservation’s national database.

Shoreham Beach Vegetation Walk and June Group Meeting

Posted on by

On a very sunny Friday 17th June, some 20 members of Ferring Conservation Group met at Shoreham Fort mainly to look at plants growing on the vegetated shingle, one of the few places in the country where this eco-system is found.

Led by Graham Tuppen members were able to find 16 of the 18 plants on their list, including Sea Kale, Red Valerian, Common and Tree Mallow, Yellow Horned Poppy, Vipers Bugloss, Kidney Vetch, Silver Ragwort, Purple Toadflax, Thrift, and Starry-headed Clover. Surprisingly, given the sunny weather, the only butterfly seen was a painted lady but several wall and sand lizards were evident.

The speaker at the Group’s June meeting was Kevin Newman, a local historian, tour guide and author of a wide range of books on Sussex. His subject was ‘Scrumptious Sussex’, taking members on a tour of the county East and West, showing images of historic pubs, hotels, restaurants and breweries and telling fascinating stories about Sussex specialities of food and drink, and the people who consumed them.

As in Worthing town’s motto, ‘From the earth fullness, from the sea good health’, Kevin pointed to Sussex agriculture and Sussex fisheries as what sustained the county and its many visitors past and present. Eating and drinking was always important for social occasions and celebrations, as a picture of a VE Day street party showed, and an essential component of the attraction of resorts like Brighton and Worthing.

Seaside fish and chips, he said, was brought to Britain by Jewish immigrants from eastern Europe, and the first curry house in Britain was opened in Brighton, as well as the first fast food establishment and the first rooftop restaurant. And the popular dessert, ‘Banoffee pie’ was invented by Ian Dowding, a chef at a restaurant in Jevington, East Sussex, in 1971.

Brighton, he said, was always an important centre for food and drink – for its fishing as well as its prodigious consumption. Long before its seaside trade, the by the Prince Regent (later George IV).

After the talk, Graham Tuppen showed slides of the vegetated shingle at Shoreham Beach, which a number of Group members had visited the previous day (please see above).

Ed Miller concluded the meeting with an update on the planning issues in and around Ferring: Including the six housing estates that developers propose for the green gaps, the commercial development up McIntyre’s Lane as well as a new application for a house in Grange Park – to be built in three storeys and in a totally unsympathetic modernist design, both overlooking and overbearing on its neighbours.

 

Come and Support our Work and Help to Keep Ferring Beautiful!

Posted on by

We welcome new members so please join us and help in our campaigns to conserve the open spaces in and around Ferring, hear interesting talks on local and regional wild life as well as joining us on our regular nature walks. Take part in practical conservation work – planting trees and wild flowers, and keeping the beach and the banks of the Rife free of litter.

Come along to one of our monthly Group meetings:

As well as excellent speakers and the ever popular and delightful Nature Notes presentations, updates on planning issues affecting Ferring and surrounding areas are delivered and discussed.

The meetings are held on the last Friday of the month in Ferring Village Hall commencing at 2.30pm (or 7.30pm in May. June and July)

Admission is £2 for members or £3 for visitors and includes tea and biscuits.

Please note our annual subscription is just £1 and includes a copy of our popular magazine

The Planning Process

Posted on by

Planning Applications – who does what?

Ferring Conservation Group spends a lot of time monitoring the applications for new housing, commercial development and large extensions or rebuilding where they impinge unfairly on neighbours, the streetscape or countryside. We often ask our members to submit individual objections but we rarely explain how the system works.  Typically which Councils are involved, or what happens when there is an appeal – it is all rather complicated:

The starting point is the law:

Under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (as amended), planning permission is required for any development of land.  Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) – certain local councils and other bodies – are responsible for examining applications for planning permission and deciding whether to approve or refuse them.

In our case the LPA is Arun District Council. They are required to draw up a Local Plan which must be submitted and endorsed by HM Planning Inspectorate (part of national government). The Local Plan and Neighbourhood Development Plan (NDP), where there is one, must be consistent with the Government’s National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF).

Applications have to be decided as to whether they are consistent with, or a departure from, the Development Plan, unless there are material considerations that indicate otherwise.

The LPAs are obliged to consult the body responsible for Highways (in our case West Sussex County Council) for their view as to the implications of any development that affects traffic, parking or road safety.

If West Sussex County Council considers that the application would have a severe detrimental effect on the local highway network, that is usually the end of the matter and the application is refused (they rarely do this – usually they just give advice on parking and access).

The LPA must enable the Parish Council to produce a Neighbourhood Development Plan, as we have in Ferring, but this NDP must be consistent with the Local Plan (as above). Arun District Council is obliged to consult Ferring Parish Council on every planning application in the parish area. Unfortunately not all Councils give full consideration to Parish Council views.

This is very much a top-down planning system not the ‘Localism’ that we were promised a few years ago. The Government sets the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and Arun DC has to produce a Local Plan that is consistent with it. Also the Parish Council has to produce a Neighbourhood Development Plan (NDP) which is consistent with the Local Plan. The system has become even more restrictive in recent years because the Government now sets housing-site delivery requirements for each LPA and a rule that each LPA must have a five-year supply of housing land.

The other way that LPAs are weakened is that when the Council have decided to refuse an application, for good and proper reasons, the developer can appeal to the Secretary of State (HM Planning Inspectorate) against that decision. The Government then appoints a Planning Inspector to decide the appeal – and his/her decision is final – it can only be challenged in the High Court (please note that the appeal system allows only the applicant to appeal, not the objectors!).

Where do local residents come in all this?

Well, we elect the Councillors and the whole country elects the Government. We can send Arun DC our objections against the applications we consider unsuitable then the Council ‘takes them into consideration’. Ferring Conservation Group sends in many objections to the applications we feel are unsuitable – we win some and we lose some. The Council may support local objections and refuse authority to develop but then the applicant can appeal to HM Planning Inspectorate who has the final say. But the Inspector’s decision is open to Judical Review, If the High Court rules that the Inspector has made a mistake in law it can quash that decision. This is what happened in the Chatsmore Farm case.

The Council wins some and loses some, and challenges in the High Court are rare and even more rarely successful.

It is a very unsatisfactory system which fails to take into account local democracy.

Ed Miller

 

The White Stork Project

Posted on by

We welcomed Lucy Groves, a conservation biologist with a special interest in movement ecology to our March meeting. Lucy is currently employed by the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust as the project officer for the White Stork Project, and is based at the Knepp Castle Estate.

Lucy began by sharing her enthusiasm for the Stork Project which is a pioneering partnership working together to restore a population of breeding White Storks in Southern England after an absence of several centuries. A number of private landowners, namely Knepp, Wadhurst and Wintershall, located in West Sussex, East Sussex and Surrey respectively are helping to establish a breeding population of free-living White Stocks in Britain once again.

This project is being carried out in partnership with the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation, Cotswold Wildlife Park, Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust and overseas at Warsaw Zoo. The named estates have constructed purpose built predator-proof pens covering about six acres each. A total of 166 rehabilitated wild-fledged White Storks from Poland, as well as a number form Northern France, have been released into these pens over the course of the last three years, in order to establish local breeding populations.

Lucy was keen to update the Group with the progress so far at Knepp and was delighted to announce that in early April 2020 five eggs were confirmed in a nest built high up in an oak tree with the eggs hatching in early May.

The project has fitted GPS trackers to a proportion of their released birds and these devices collect data to help determine home ranges, habitat choice, foraging strategies, distance moved per day etc.

White storks are particularly associated with the county of Sussex. For instance the Saxon name for the village of Storrington was originally ‘Estorchestone’; meaning ‘the village of storks’. A pair of white storks still features on the village emblem.

After a break for refreshments David Bettiss delivered Trisha Hall’s Nature Notes session and it was encouraging to hear that several species of butterfly had been seen locally; Commas, Tortoiseshell, Brimstone, Red Admiral, Small Whites, Orange Tips and Holly Blue. The Red Kites were thriving and as many as eleven had been spotted high above Beachy Head and it is thought that they have new breeding territories. Many waders had already returned to their breeding grounds in Europe. Chiff Chaffs are the first migrant birds to be seen here when five were sighted in the vicinity of the Rife, along with Green Finches. To the delight of local birdwatchers a rare Desert Wheatear had been reported on the Goring Gap and plenty of frog spawn and tadpoles were evident in the lagoons by the Rife – David also has a newt in his garden pond. Pretty yellow Celandines were plentiful throughout the village especially in Clover Lane, and magnificent Magnolia trees in full bloom were gracing many gardens. The Blackthorn was in bloom locally and Arun DC have confirmed wildflower beds were to be seeded in the public green spaces throughout the village.

Ed Miller concluded the meeting with the devastating news that Persimmon Homes had won their appeal to HM Planning Inspectorate and had now been given the go ahead to build 475 homes on the Chatsmore Farmland at the Northern Goring Gap – although this may be challenged by Worthing BC in the High Court. It was likely however that other large scale planning applications may be revived in view of this decision. The Highdown Vineyard planning application has already surfaced again and a Public Consultation had been planned in the Village Hall on 30th March. There has been a back-garden development proposed for a property on the corner of Sea Lane Gardens and Greenways Crescent, and a property already undergoing renovation has submitted a planning application for a 4-bed house in its back garden.

 

 

 

FCG visit to Pagham Harbour

Posted on by

A dozen Ferring Conservation Group members recently made their way to Pagham Harbour for their annual Spring birdwatching visit. The party, which included a couple of members making their first such visit to the harbour, was led by one of the Group’s bird experts, Clive Hope.

Weather wise, on what was forecast to be a windy day, it turned out to be pretty good, especially when there was shelter from the elements and the sun decided to shine. On the bird count, a total of 38 different species were recorded, which was thought to be quite impressive.

The highlight was probably the sheer number of Brent Geese seen, with a good estimate of approximately 1000 in total, and many of these were probably preparing to make their migratory trip back to their breeding grounds in Europe. They made a spectacular sight, especially when some of them took to the air, probably spooked by an unseen raptor.

Some of the other birds seen included Great Crested Grebe, about 20 Pintail, Ringed Plover, Grey Plover, Knot, Black-tailed Godwit, Curlew, Redshank and even a Green Woodpecker.

A couple of enjoyable hours was considered a suitable time period, before the party repaired to the local café for a spot of lunch before returning home to Ferring. This really is a worthwhile and informative way to get out into the Sussex countryside in good company and with expert guides to learn more about our local wildlife. If you haven’t been out for a trip with the Group before, then it’s definitely worth considering in the future.

The Goring Gap – our Member of Parliament speaks out:

Posted on by

Sir Peter Bottomley has made the following statement on his Facebook page:At  the recent Public Inquiry, the Council made a very clear case against the development, Ferring Conservation Group made a very clear case against the development. I would like to think that I, too, made a very clear case against the development.However, in spite of the clear case against the unwanted development, the Inspectorate has now ruled that the appeal should be allowed and granted outline planning permission to concrete over the north Goring Gap.I am wildly angry, to put it politely.If West Sussex Council wants Goring Gap to be a green space, if Worthing Borough Council wants Goring Gap to be a green space, if Arun District Council wants Goring Gap to be a green space and if the entire community is united in wanting Goring Gap to be a green space, surely Goring Gap should be a protected green space.I do not believe a planning inspector should be able to overturn the decision with three vague paragraphs.I will seek to speak immediately with the Chief Whip, the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister.The decision has to be called in for review by the present Secretary of State. It must be overruled.If any Inspector can trample on the democratic responsibility of the planning authority in this way, what is the point of Worthing Borough Council and what is the point of the member of parliament?The fight to protect Goring Gap goes on, the battle is not lost.We are grateful for his consistent and full-hearted support. – Ed

Bad News on the Northern Gap

Posted on by

We were shocked to discover today that the Inspector who conducted the Planning Inquiry into Persimmon’s Appeal on the Chatsmore Farm site has upheld that appeal and so, unless something extraordinary happens, the 475-house estate will be built.

It is a bitter blow to all of us – Ed Miller