Photocall: MEP meets campaigners at threatened Green Belt site
Time:
Friday, February 7th, 2002, 1pm
Place: Maylands Fields, Havering
GREEN MEP Jean Lambert is to visit a protected Green Belt site in Havering threatened with development this Friday (February 7) to investigate whether the work contravenes Government regulations.
Mrs Lambert will be shown around Maylands Field, a 30-acre wooded area recognised as a site of Metropolitan Importance to wildlife and home to a bat colony, voles and shrews and several rare plant species, by campaigners fighting to protect the site.
Local residents say Maylands Fields have been subject to attempts to systematically clear and level the land which have seen shrubs and trees removed and the construction of a fence without planning permission.
The London MEP said: "Locals have used Maylands Fields for many years and local feelings are running high - hundreds attended a public meeting on the issue last month.
"I
understand work has already begun clearing scrub and felling trees on the site.
If this work is posing a threat to the flora and fauna at the site it could be
in contravention of Government rules requiring land
owners to carry out Environmental
Impact Assessments before using uncultivated land for intensive agriculture.
"As London's Green MEP I will take up the matter urgently with the Secretary of State for Agriculture Margaret Beckett, and ask her to look at the development and consider stepping in - for the sake of the wildlife and the local residents whose precious Green Belt is under threat."
ENDS
For further details contact Ben Duncan on 02074076280, 07973823358 or press@greenmeps.org.uk
Note
to Editors
The DEFRA regulations of February 2002 require an Environmental Impact Assessment where scrub is cleared or managed with the aim of converting uncultivated land or semi-natural areas to arable or stock farming. The private owner of Maylands Fields has said the purpose of the development on the land is for the grazing of cattle.
Maylands is a recorded reptile site - which should
be protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1982. Campaigners believe
there is a real, and imminent threat that Maylands will be reseeded. If this happens,
the floral and insect base of the sites ecology may be destroyed.