Plea to stop development on Barrack Road in Christchurch over protected slow worms on site

RESIDENTS who opposed a development in Christchurch have urged plans to be paused after finding protected slow worms on the site.

They want further investigation after the proposals for three blocks containing 38 flats at 215-225 Barrack Road were given the go-ahead earlier this year by BCP Council.

DWP Housing Partnership said discovery of the creatures would not stop construction and it would follow proper procedure to relocate them.

The scheme will replace Christchurch Body Repair Centre, Dragon Palace restaurant, and four semi-detached properties.

Planners were warned at the time by residents currently living on the site about the presence of rare slow worms, which are a protected species.

But the applicant said it conducted an environmental survey in August 2020 that had concluded there were none there.

A neighbour of the site, who cannot be named for personal reasons, is now pushing for more investigations after regularly seeing them in her garden and taking photographic evidence.

She told the A&T: “I wrote to BCP Council before the plans were approved telling them there was protected wildlife at the site and construction should not go ahead, but my objections were not noted.

“If a proper ecology report had been carried out the developer would know this – they’re really easy to find.

“I’ve since contacted the council again and sent them more photos of the slow worms which, according to the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, should be ‘left alone’.

“I feel the situation is being deliberately ignored and that the developer is turning a blind eye to this.”

As part of the approval, BCP Council’s planning committee required that prior to any works taking place, an additional ecological survey be carried out.

But a spokesperson for DWP Housing insisted the presence of slow worms at the site would not prevent the development going ahead.

“If there are slow worms present then the accepted protocols will be followed,” they said. “But this would not be a bar on development.

“Where they are found in urban environments, the usual practice is to catch them in humane traps to then release into more appropriate and suitable habitats and environment.”

As reported in the A&T, the application was approved last year but went back before the committee in May due to the site being considered by the Environment Agency at higher risk of flooding.

Another resident living on the site also said that every time it rained he and his wife had to “wade through six inches of standing water to get the kids to school”.

However, officers assured members that flood mitigation measures had been secured and that such a risk was “not a constraint on the proposal”. They recommended permission be granted.

Despite some councillors raising a number of concerns about the scheme, which they said was one of three flat applications within a 400-metre stretch of Barrack Road to come before the committee, the plans were given the go-ahead.