How we could save Rookwood
Well, the virus has seen many using the time to relax and look in the garden.
Well, take a long hard look, because a lot of the insects, bugs, whatever are only a percentage of what you would have seen in the not too distant past. We are killing our insects to our detriment.
Many are of course regarded as pests and I agree that losing tended fruit and vegetables to outside ‘visitors’ is irritating; however, they do feed predators further up the food chain.
The danger is that by overkill, we will lose the predators and when they go, the pests will multiply exponentially.
Sure, we can spray and try to poison them out of existence, but remember about a third of our food is pollinated by insects.
China is experimenting with mini robots to pollinate crops as manual labour is insufficient to completely pollinate correctly.
Our hedgerows need to be increased, verges mowed less (a saving for the county) and more manual weeding rather than spraying.
The building on Rookwood destroys more wildlife. I fail to understand how, when destroying ‘nature’ by constructing properties that the proposals include ‘enhancing biodiversity’ and mentioning ‘sustainability’ can be used within any relevant context.
Climate change really is small change when comparing to the wholesale destruction of habitat and population of our wildlife.
Hardly ever, now, do we see hedgehogs, slow worms, lacewings, dragonflies, frogs, toads, newts, and the variety of birds that were present even five years ago.
We no longer cut the grass on the verge outside our property, we have piles of dead wood, pay WSCC to plant trees in our road, buy ladybirds and lacewings to release in our garden.
Of course, they fly away, but over the past five years they are suddenly visible in our garden. A small success story.
We are not tree huggers, simply desire our children and grandchildren to have a reasonable decent environment to live in – if they chose to remain in Horsham.
I think a sobering thought is that if all humans die tomorrow, then nature will ‘come back’ and the planet will continue and revert to equilibrium.
When we have killed off insects, the earth will continue down the destruction route and humans will die out.
We need to have hedges planted, areas linked to enable wildlife to have a corridor and only build minimal buildings which need to be energy neutral.
Something we could all do though is to buy Rookwood from Horsham District Council and the joint owner, and with the way of the Internet now (crowd funding), raise the sum required and preserve it for ourselves and descendants.
It could be that the part owner would be happy to remain as part owner and not sell their half? Power to the people! Bit revolutionary eh? would limit the delivery of homes’.
Covid-19 and its catastrophic consequences is an ‘exceptional circumstance’, that is beyond the council’s control.
Accordingly, as is permitted by the ‘guidance’, the council should itself determine what the district’s housing need is (e.g. not decide arbitrarily), and submit it to the Planning Inspectorate with a detailed explanation as a part of the proposed local plan, for scrutiny at the Examinationin-Public.