Hedgerow’s destruction has caused devastation
After tea on the evening of our return from four relaxing days on the Isles of Scilly, I said to my wife: “I’m going for a walk down Low Road to check on the crop of hazelnuts.”
Last year, I had harvested hundreds from the hedgerows around the fields adjacent to Willerby Low Road, commencing my walk at its Cottingham end.
Before I had passed the last house, I saw the beginning of a terrible sight, which, including Haggs Lane, amounts to a mile or so of wreckage.
The hedgerow has been cruelly and brutally massacred. Everything with a diameter of under 3in had been ripped down – even a mature oak had several branches left hanging there.
Field maple, elder, ash, oak, hazel, hawthorn, blackthorn, dog-rose, bramble, ivy – all now unrecognisable shattered stumps.
This wildlife habitat and winter food for insects, mammals and birds had been destroyed. Rosehips and hawthorn berries glowed dimly in the ditch among the over-shredded detritus.
Along this road I have gathered brambles, elderflower (for cordial), elderberries (jam and cordial), sloes (gin), crab-apples and hazelnuts. Not this year, nor next, will I gather the wayside fruits which my mother taught me to harvest.
When will I next see yellow-hammers, tawny owls, wrens, long-tailed tits or even sparrow and blackbirds?
How can this destruction be allowed? Somebody, please, tell me. Christopher Moore, Wolfe Close, Cottingham.