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Tuesday 1 January 2008

Lorry Park - tree preservation order


______________________________________________________________
From: Ian Medgett
FAO: Linda Cross,
Ashford Borough Council,
Civic Centre,
Tannery Lane
Ashford

08/04/08

Dear Mrs/Miss Cross,

Having contacted your office today and been informed by one of your assistants that no such designation is in place, I would like to ask you to consider placing a blanket Tree Preservation Order on an area of woodland at GIS grid reference 607300/138859, located to the south of the M20 and to the east of Evegate Manor Farm. Kent County Council has made its` intentions clear to file planning permission to use the adjoining land as a lorry park with access and egress to the M20 and I am concerned that these works will have a detrimental effect on the woodland concerned.

The site in question is a roughly triangular wooded area which consists of a mixture of recent and over mature coppice with standard trees interspersed, mainly of oak (quercus spp.), ash (fraxinus excelsior), hazel (corylinus avenullum) with edge habitat species of hawthorn (crataegus monogyna), and elder(sambucus niger).
Ground flora on site is dense and consists of plants which are all highly indicative of ancient wet woodland, these include herb paris (paris quadrifolia), dogs mercury (mercuralis perennis), ramsoms (allium ursinum), arum (arum maculatum), bluebell (endymion non-scriptus), harebell (campanula rotundiflora), primrose (primula vulgaris) and yellow iris (iris pseudocorus).

Although I am aware that indicator species are not definitive, I believe that the density and quality of the cover species involved, topography (steep, wet valley making cultivation difficult) and map based evidence justify defining the site as ancient woodland and therefore worthy of protection. I have map evidence of the site in its` present shape dated 1876 stating that it is part of Old Park Wood, and further map evidence from 1769 of the presence of Old Park Wood in this location. I would venture that if the wood could be classed as `old` in 1769, then it would have been present in 1650, which I believe is the defining date for ancient woodland status. Please feel free to contact me should you wish to see the map based evidence.

The woodland is easily accessible to the public and visible from surrounding roads and footpaths as a landscape feature, its` environs are imminently under threat of major development and I would urge you to consider a swift designation of a blanket Tree Preservation Order for this remaining fragment of Old Park Wood.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours,
IAN MEDGETT
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