Kennet Valley Park Development Meeting – Saturday 26th January – Your support is Needed!

Kennet Valley Park Development Meeting – Saturday 26th January – Your support is Needed!


There is to be a public show of displeasure with the proposals for Kennet Valley Park at The Cunning Man pub on Saturday 26th January at 2pm when we expect the local MP Martin Salter and other politicians, plus the Press to be present. BOC will be represented by John Lerpiniere, our Conservation Officer and Colin Wilson, former Chairman.


This is an opportunity to spend just a few minutes of your time to be seen there and make the developers and the public, via newspapers and the politicians, know how unhappy we are at the damage to the local environment resulting from the building of 7500 homes right on Reading?s doorstep.


The BOC is opposed to this development but we are only as strong as our membership. We need you to come along and be seen there on Saturday. You will not be called upon to speak or to do anything other than swell the crowds, but if asked by the press or others, you may wish to comment on the following for starters:

  • This development is on the Flood Plain, mainly in the most high risk areas as witnessed by the maps on the Environment Agency website (The area is today, as I write, subject to a flood watch on the Environment Agancy website)

  • with 7500 homes comes literally, thousands of cats and dogs and human recreational activity that will render useless any attempts to segregate areas for wildlife and endanger all ground nesting birds such as Lapwings and Redshanks i.e. those supposed to be helped by the mitigation measures in the meadows

  • The infrastructure of Reading is already creaking and a massive amount of investment in new roads and facilities such as the hospitals and motorway accesses are essential before contemplating this development

  • The area is home to c.60 pairs of Nightingales, a threatened species in the UK, Kingfishers and Cetti?s warblers which are Schedule 1 birds under the Wildlife and Countryside Act and to Water Voles, the most threatened mammals in Britain. It also holds a major heronry where Little Egrets bred for the first time on 2007.

  • The site is of INTERNATIONAL IMPORTANCE for wintering Gadwall as confirmed annually by the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, RSPB and BTO through the WeBS surveys.

  • The area is mainly a Wildlife Heritage Site and while it has not been designated an SSSI it has the species density to easily qualify for this designation.


Please help with this ? one or two people cannot do it alone ? we need the help of all of you to stop this development on one of the best sites for wildlife in Berkshire.


If you wish to have further information please feel free to contact Colin Wilson ? details below. You can read more about the proposals at www.kennetvalleypark.com.


Colin Wilson


Tel 01252 837411

Mobile 07899 066687

26 Jan 2008









Colin Wilson – 22 January 2008