Are Motorists Sociopaths?

I was out riding my bike the other day, up through Histon, back home through Milton. Nice ride for the time of year, by which I mean that I can enjoy the magnificent golden East Anglian evening sun that turns early Autumn in these parts a stunning mix of green and amber. And I've also got to deal with the carnage motoring plays on wild animals that are mown down in vast numbers while foraging through the litter of the close of summer, killed en masse, in their prime while trying to fatten up for dark months ahead.

After I'd swerved around a flattened hedgehog I slowed down to negotiate a badger who had car tracks through his midriff, before stopping to neck a pigeon who'd been winged by some motorist or other and who wasn't going to survive the resultant wounds for long. Indeed, on my short (urban) commute home I know I'll see the same three desiccating wild beasts on the tarmac that I saw on the way to work. The crime for which these animals paid the ultimate price? Being in the way of motons.

I'm not okay with this. It isn't reasonable to kill a wild (or domestic) animal because you're in a hurry - and that is all that is happening here. Imagine the following conversation.

"I ran over a fox on the way to work, couldn't help it on the main road it just stared at the headlights."  you say to your colleague as you hand over her morning cup of tea.
"Oh, I know, its terrible isn't it?"  She replies, taking the cuppa with the kind of smile that tells you tea really is the solution to all of your woes "I hit a pigeon at the weekend, I was sure it would fly out of the way but I was picking feathers out of my radiator grill later on."

Now re-phrase that a little.

"Travelling fast is important to me, so I drive such that I won't be able to adjust my course or speed to avoid killing innocent wild animals. As a result of that I killed a beautiful animal, a fox in fact, and I am in no way going to accept any responsibility for having done wrong".

Or lets put it another way.

"I punched a fox to death. I was out cycling and it risked slowing me down a little so I killed it in a way that is completely unsuitable for ensuring a clean painless death. Heck, it might still be suffering now, I've got no idea, why should I give a fuck?"

Does your colleague take the tea and share a Tea smile with you now? No? You mean because you implied that we are (or should be) responsible for our own actions you've broken the moton omerta and become outcast from their secret animal death cult?

Millions of animals are killed on our roads every year - estimates vary, but because we're in a society where mowing down creatures is considered just one of those things no one is keeping count. Whether its a vegan driving to work in his stereotypical Prius or a confirmed carnivore in a predictable Land Rover, each is guilty of being part of a culture that puts animal welfare at the bottom of their priority list. But its worse than that - around 6% of motorists go out of their way to kill animals with their cars. Yes, that does include you, 'animal lover' driving the dog for a walk in the country park.

Killing animals, voyeurism of harm... These are often thought of as early signs of psychopathy. So I'm forced to ask - are motorists, through being basically okay with activities that brutally and messily kill animals in vast numbers, collectively or individually sociopaths? Quite seriously, you're okay with killing warm blooded animals not to eat, or to have some useful product from, but merely as an inevitable side product of a daily activity that you could readily change such that this isn't the case any more? What the fuck is wrong with you?

UPDATED: Are motorists sociopaths? Exhibit A.

Arbury Road - correspondence with County Chief Exec

I phoned the Chief Execs office, explaned the situation re. Arbury Road Hedge, and Chief Execs PA asked me to email. I agreed if Chief Exec would then be willing to maybe talk to me about it, and sent this last week:

Dear Ms. Beasley,
I talked to your PA, in the hope I might meet with you to discuss the colossal cock-up that suffices as the hedging scheme on Arbury Road. Its a complex set of issues best discussed in person, but I've kept a log of events mostly summarised here:

http://www.cambridgecyclist.co.uk/2017/04/arbury-road-cycle-lane-and-hedge.html

As you can see, there are numerous links therein to each part of the process.
Since then, they've done two further (stupid) things:  

http://www.cambridgecyclist.co.uk/2017/05/arbury-road-cycle-lane-scheme-peak.html

I'm facing a total refusal from the City Deal when trying to get them to make good on any aspect of this.

I'd like to meet with you and discuss what can be done - I know that Kings Hedges hasn't got the pester power of, say, Milton Road, but I don't think that means that City Deal should be able to take us for mugs. Simple things - resolving to re-plant the under-story with appropriate native species, sourcing a simple wire fence (or even just cutting holes every 3 or 4m to allow hedgehogs through) would make a big difference.

Thanks

The response was disappointing - I was told that someone who is a communications manager at City Deal would be in touch. Thats good isn't it? Rather than escalate my complaint the desire was to nudge me sideways to someone who, when I talked to her this morning, hadn't a clue what it could possibly have to do with her.

I sent further emails about this on Friday (anticipating said Comms officer would think this daft):

Sorry that's not acceptable and I will not be expecting that contact - I don't want to de-escalate this, I want to take it upwards.

Multiple County employees have done everything they can to dodge this already and the season is stretching on - unless amelioration is urgently planned then we'll have no hope of restoring any of the damage done. I don't want to move this laterally, I want to escalate this to the Chief Executive directly.

Please can I have that conversation with the chief executive, as soon a possible?

And...

I would also like to repeat an FoI request (so far completely ignored by City Deal) to you.

I would like you to release all documents related to any and all ecological surveys of the he hedge on Arbury Road prior to the removal thereof in March, and those pertaining to selection of species to replant. I believe that scant consideration was given to the ecology of the site and would like to inspect said documents.

I have requested this from City Deal already, but they have not responded to my FoI request.
Yours

And then this one today...

Ms. (x) was perfectly nice when I called her, but was as baffled as I was as to why a communications manager ought to be talking about a hedge.

Please arrange a time for for us to discuss this, Me. Beasley. I've discussed it with multiple County Council officers including (x), (y) and (z). None of them are willing to do a single thing to ameliorate the ecological damage caused by the scheme which has incorporated the wrong plants, at the wrong time of year, mulched to exclude the possibility of the vast bulk of native species in undergrowth re-growing and protected by a hedgehog-barrier that further fragments the habitat of this increasingly threatened species. 

I don't believe any environmental assessment was conducted and I don't think that the ecology of the site or wider area was considered at all - the plants were bought while consultation on what to plant was on-going, any and all community engagement was a sham to make us think we were being listened to.

Officers have failed here, in every important environmental aspect. There is no purpose referring me back to the same people who have demonstrated so clearly they have no interest.
The only course here is escalation.

Can we meet and talk or discuss this on the phone. Ms. Beasley. I will not accept that sending someone out for a couple of hours with bolt-cutters to cut holes for hedgehogs, and then re-planting plugs of native plant species in Autumn, are beyond the capability or budget of City Deal or the County Council.
Yours,

I've contacted two different wildlife charities and I'm waiting their responses.

It would be fair to say that in my opinion County officers have failed here, misreably and entirely. Huge opportunity for a very positive environmental outcome has been squandered. What a shame. What a crying shame.

Correspondence with Chief Exec of City Deal

Chief Exec of City Deal sent me a response. It isn't labelled as confidential so I'm going to share it, removing names of people other than the Chief Exec of the County Council.

I refer to your recent correspondence to the Chief Executive of Cambridgeshire County Council, Gillian Beasley, and your recent telephone discussions with (w), Interim Director of Transportation for the Greater Cambridge Partnership (formerly City Deal).

As I understand it, you remain unhappy with the actions we have taken in response to the concerns you have raised, and I have therefore reviewed our approach. Obviously we have also spoken previously when you raised some earlier concerns regarding the planting of the hedge and I believe the actions (x)  took, following a meeting with you on site, did go some way to alleviate some, if not all, of your concerns.

I understand you have recently had some additional concerns which you have raised with a number of colleagues and (w) has attempted to resolve these with you. This primarily concerned the access for hedgehogs through the fence and following discussion between you and Chris, I understand that he agreed to re-look at this with a view to providing the necessary access.

You also raised the question of undercover and the mulching that has taken place. In this case our view remains the same: that it is more important, at this stage, to get the hedge established by ensuring there is a plentiful supply of water and that the moisture is retained with the aid of the mulch. We will ensure that any invasive weed growth that could affect the establishment of the hedge is dealt with on a regular basis.

Whilst I understand your continuing concerns, I trust this addresses the points you have raised.  If, however, you are not satisfied with my reply, you may escalate your complaint further under the Council’s complaints procedure, which can be found at http://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/complain

Yours sincerely

So its evident that she hasn't got it.

The habitat we had has been wrecked, this was a great opportunity to do better, and that opportunity is being missed due to sheer bloody mindedness. We can't now fix all the damage but showing some willing to make it better would give some confidence that we can work with City Deal. They just aren't interested though - a hedge is a green thing you drive past to them, and any other local ecological concerns are irrelevant to them. Going forward this means residents groups and individuals can and will oppose them ever more on their ecological record - it would be entirely reasonable to object to any program on this basis. I've sent my reply thus:



Dear Ms. Stopard,

It does appear to me that you haven't grasped any part of my complaint.

I did meet with (x) and while I thought he showed some willing, the ecological situation on the ground is close to catastrophic. We have lost dozens of species, there is a fence in place which is actively hostile to wildlife, and by cutting hedgehog habitat in two risked starving the animals and which is, right now, killing parts of the newly planted hedge by providing support for bindweed to shade out the shrubs. The hedge itself was planted at the wrong time of year (despite saying it would be done in autumn it was done at the end of March), consists of many species that are both culturally and ecologically inappropriate in hedging in Cambridge - (the hedge will be 'gappy' once the wrong shrubs start dying back. i.e. when you stop watering them), and there must surely be serious questions asked about planting bushes producing toxic berries at the gates to a primary school.

Regarding the undergrowth - you have it already but, again, its the wrong kind. The tough, ineradicable roots of bindweed and cow parsley are already taking over and causing precisely the problem (competing for water) you're describing. They're plants with deep energy supplies in the roots and they've no problem coming up through the mulch, which they've done. You have not, by mulching, achieved your goal of suppressing competitive weeds, you've only managed to achieve a huge loss of biodiversity - the site will therefore be less interesting to look at as well as supporting fewer species of plant, invertebrate and bird. 

My biggest concern is that your colleagues have not shown any willing to engage on local ecology - it simply must not be a fight (as it was) to get them to acknowledge that a fence in hedge that hedgehogs can't get through is a mistake. Likewise, when looking at the undergrowth, the real biodiversity of the site ,it shouldn't be a battle. I cannot stress enough that in this scheme I can find no evidence of anything suggested to your team, by anyone outside, has been enacted at all.

Going forward there are bigger battles than this for City Deal - are you really wanting to leave this as an ecological mess? 

All thats needed is to acknowledge that local hedging culture and ecology are important to understand for future projects, and to look in to ordering plug-plants of native species that were in the hedge but which will struggle to re-seed on their own, for plating in autumn. This will probably only cost a couple of hundred quid, its not a big cost but it has a big ecological payback. 

Frankly, I don't understand either the recalcitrance or the sheer bloody minded, confrontational way your staff have approached this. Is this how you want City Deal to work with the public?

Can you please reconsider how you're handling this, and can we talk about re-planting some of the valuable species lost?

Yours

Regent Street/Lensfield Road re-design?

Ideally I'd like to see most cycle facilities in the UK be off-road, wide, well surfaced, protected, direct, prioritised over side roads, etc. But that ain't happening yet.

We're primarily seeing roads and junctions considered with cyclists at least in the back of the minds of road planners - conceptually better than us not being considered at all, but still not at all good enough of course. Here's a classic example. This is the proposal for how Hills Road/Regent Street/Lensfield Road junction might be changed.

At present that junction is a killer - its congested, with far too many lanes of traffic squeezed in. Cars turning in any direction give no space for cyclists - and the cycle lanes that exist on Regent Street/Hills Road either disappear many yards before the junction or randomly appear on your exit from it - they're badly surfaced, barely wide enough, and so regularly chock full of cars, buses or taxis as to be frequently un-navigable. Here's what it looks like on Google Maps:

View Larger Map

looking towards Regent Street from Hills Road - the plan is to reduce this
to two lanes for cars but, strangely, not give any room to anyone else...

It will come as no surprise that at present this is one of the most hazardous junctions for cyclists in Cambridge. It has big, wide sweeping corners to allow motorists to accelerate rapidly into the yellow hatched area - it therefore has two traffic speeds, static and far too fast. Cyclists can either wait in long lines of motorists who will try to muscle through them when the lights change or they can squeeze through gaps barely wider than they are to the front, wait in front of the cars, and at least put themselves in a place where the motorists have to knowingly kill them rather than carelessly pancake them on the curbside.

Here we've actually got rather wide roads, lots of space to design features to make this an excellent place to ride your bike or walk through the city. Right? When looking at this junction its obvious what needs to be done - we need to reconsider how the space is used and put pedestrians first, cyclists second, bus and delivery drivers third and cars fourth. We need to prioritise the safety of the most vulnerable and least polluting, and we need to tame the cars that turn this into a more of a survival lottery than a civilised junction.

Clearly there's no space for bikes on Regent Street... At least, not
according to the new plans

You will of course be unsurprised to learn that proposed changes to the junction do not do this. There are some changes that have passing resemblance to good infrastructure, but that does not stand up to analysis. The junction is still smooth and fast - designed by motorists, for motorists. Pedestrians still have pointless extra distance to travel to get to crossings designed to corale them away from the cars - taming the car is clearly more than we can expect.

And cycling? Look, there are advance stop boxes. You'll have to scrape the paint of the buses and cars between narrow lanes of traffic to get to them; we're not actually taking any road space and giving it to you, we're simply putting a box at the front of the traffic and pretending we give a damn. I mean you won't be able to get to these bike boxes in anything like safety, and on current record they're not enforced anyway - they'll have cars in them when you get there. And from these boxes there's no evidence of an advance phase on the lights for cyclists - you can battle your way to the front and then f**k you. You'll have to put up with cars turning left through the space you're in, or wrestle across the traffic that wants to go straight on through you while you're turning right. And heaven help you if the lights change when you're stuck between two vans as you're shuffling towards the ASL - we'll send out a man with a mop to wipe you up. Well, we would if you weren't a cyclist. We'll let the hedgehogs eat you. Not that a hedgehog has the least chance of surviving this road either.

What would you like here - an ASL for squeezing between the
taxi and the lorry, or reduction to one lane for cars and one for bikes?

I can't imagine what would possess planners to pitch this as a good design for cyclists, and I rather hope that Cambridge Cycling Campaign respond in a far more critical way than they've sometimes done. This isn't any kind of improvement for us - its re-branding a positively vile sea of cyclist and pedestrian mangling tarmac in such a way as to put a sheen of caring on it. It won't change anything, it won't make anything better. It exists purely to make it look like they're helping us.

What we need at this junction to make it safer is quite simple - direct, protected cycle lanes with their own light phase to allow transit for cyclists in space sufficiently safe that they will not feel pushed on to the pavement merely to survive. Direct routes for pedestrians - that means sorting out the wide, sweeping corners that currently encourage motorists to act as if they're indestructable. And lets be realistic about how long pedestrians need to cross the road - its unacceptable to tell people they'll either have to stand on a traffic island for several minutes or sprint in between the cars, all for the sake of making the motorists wait another few seconds.

This junction, as it currently stands and as it would be after these changes, is for motorists. Anyone else using it would do so under their sufferance - and that is short sighted nonsense. Lets have a braver, more realistic proposal for a junction that would be genuinely safe for pedestrians and cyclists. This proposal? Rubbish.

Copy of email to Cllr Lewis Herbert re. Arbury Road Hedge.

Dear Lewis,

Here's the most recent update:

http://www.cambridgecyclist.co.uk/2017/07/correspondence-with-chief-exec-of-city.html

Most relevant facts in addition to that are -

1. Hedge removal and replanting was due to be done in Autumn to limit wildlife disturbance. Thats even still there on the City Deal website.

2. I only worked out work might be going on earlier because there was interesting coloured paint on Arbury Road - even councillors didn't know what that was about (the mystery of the coloured paint was raised at NAC).

3. I proactively pursued to find out what was happening, was told the hedge would be removed. The consultation hadn't said that the hedge would be removed in its entirety but I decided to make the best of it by discussing how to replace it. I kept notes, publicly:

http://www.cambridgecyclist.co.uk/2017/02/new-hedge-for-arbury-road-facilitating.html

http://www.cambridgecyclist.co.uk/2017/03/arbury-road-hedge-to-facilitate-cycle.html

4. During this discussion the plans quite suddenly moved from the stated Autumn goal to, well, immediately:

http://www.cambridgecyclist.co.uk/2017/03/arbury-road-hedge-to-facilitate-cycle_20.html

While I'd mused a little on what should be replanted I'll confess to being totally wrong-footed. I was no where near a final position on regarding what should be replanted there - that was a job for Spring when the hedges on old Histon Road and other older hedges in Histon and Milton were in leaf so I could provide a more recently informed view.

5. Although I'd tried to chase to get some understanding of local hedging ecology and culture, the plants for putting in already been ordered - not only had the project quite suddenly moved to March, but any opportunity to influence planting was lost. No advice was taken as to what to buy, a poor species mix (for the location) was ordered.

http://www.cambridgecyclist.co.uk/2017/03/arbury-road-cycle-lane-its-all-gone.html

Of particular concern is planting spindle and alder buckthorn right in front of a primary school, they're both appealing looking berries and rather toxic. Dogwood also makes up a major part of the planting scheme and cause, in a surprising number of people, contact dermatitis. Again I wouldn't choose to plant that in front of a school.

But the problem of tree selection runs deeper than that - this isn't good for the local ecology. Alder buckthorn is not historically used in hedging here because it likes a good wet location - which this isn't. Likewise several of the other species present have no history in hedging culture here because they don't thrive here, whereas many of the species we had (showing that it was a traditional native hedge for Cambridgeshire) do. The result is that we have no net gain in biodiversity in the tree species present, and many of the shrubs will, over a few years, simply die off when they're no longer being regularly watered. 

6. I tried to push for local cultivars to be incporporated, because we'd had them there previously. They were not - there has been some uptake of said as specimen trees, but they won't survive as well as they did in hedges. Good selection of specimens is not the same as good selection of hedge plants.

http://www.cambridgecyclist.co.uk/2017/03/the-continuing-saga-of-arbury-road.html

7. I could by this point only compile a species list of what had been lost from memory - the hedge was a repository for much that isn't really left in this part of the city because habitat is so fragmented. Once that hedge was gone getting things re-seeded there was going to be hard, but still do-able. I shared this list with the City Deal officers in the hope of getting some re-seeding, but their response wasn't positive.

http://www.cambridgecyclist.co.uk/2017/04/arbury-road-hedge-undergrowth-planting.html

8. The goal of preventing the shrubs there from being competed with by mulching effectively meant that many of the species lost will remain lost - only those that can penetrate from a substantial, tough root-stock and those with very vigorous seedlings that can get through the wood chips could come back. Because they're now dominating the site, unless we see some re-planting we're going to have poor species dieversity in the undergrowth. That means fewer flowers, fewer invertebrate species, and a drop in nesting bird numbers. 

9. To make absolutely sure as much ecological damage could be done as possible a fence was put in to protect the hedge from being trampled. Putting posts and wires in (which was, I was told, the plan) is a good idea. But making the holes smaller than a hedgehog (which often nest in the denser gardens on Arbury Road but forage in the estate on the other side) is just cruel. City Deal turned even getting holes cut in this fence to let hedgehogs through into a fight. 

http://www.cambridgecyclist.co.uk/2017/05/arbury-road-cycle-lane-scheme-peak.html

Bluntly, moving the scheme from Autumn to Spring meant that formulation of a good plan for our local ecology was impossible. The result is that we've an unsuitable species mix planted, and a representative native flora under-story will not re-grow without significant help. But I'd say the situation is worse than that - this is an opportunity wasted. Why weren't the kids at the Primary School talked to about getting a better hedge? Why did no one walk a few hundred yards to the hedges on the old route of Histon Road (they're still there, behind the slip road to the A14) and see whats tradition in hedging here and what thrives? Why did no one consider the implication of mulching on native biodiversity (this hasn't removed competition, it has merely limited the species richness thereof)? We are looking now at a severely depleted ecology - does anyone at City Deal give a damn?

The situation can't be recovered entirely, but replanting with plugs of native species that were previously there could help a lot. I would propose selecting species that are unlikely to seed themselves back - a dozen, maybe a couple of dozen species, which would of course benefit from the watering being given the hedgerow. I'd suggest planting in autumn or early Spring. This wouldn't be expensive - I should think it might cost a few hundred quid. 

This doesn't seem like much to ask, but City Deal are having none of it.

Would you care to speak up for that or not?

Thanks, 

CAB Davidson

Arbury Road Cycle Lane - Hedge (again)

Chased this at the North Area Committee. Incensed that they tried to cut the public-questions section short and I had to heckle to get this heard. Turns out that our local democracy really is struggling, if you're not a geriatric belly-aching about non-resident parking I don't think they want to hear. Anway, raised it there, and that will probably achieve nothing.

This is a copy of an email I've just sent the elected Mayor:

Dear James,

I contacted you via. Twitter, as you're our new mayor, to discuss a problem I've had with City Deal.

You may be aware that we're getting some long-overdue upgrades on Arbury Road in North Cambridge. With any luck we'll eventually get a cycle route all the way down Arbury Road so people living in, say, Histon or Orchard Park will be able to ride to work at places like the Beehive Centre. We sorely need this, and I'm supportive of each part as long as we're working towards a cohesive whole (i.e. a route on the whole length of the road). I rather fear we'll end up with a good facility down half the length of the road, one that'll look good but hardly be used because it doesn't connect to anywhere. But thats another story.

Stage 1 has already been completed, and we're in the middle of stage 2. When the consultation stage of that happened, the proposal was that the hedge by Arbury Road would be 'reduced'. When the project kicked off in March, we were given just a couple of days notice that this would not be the case - the hedge would be removed in its entirety.

Now before going further I should stress that while this hedge wasn't one of the hedges that gave Kings Hedges its name it was still an old structure. Arbury Road is the oldest street name in Cambridge, and there were species present in the hedge indicative that it pre-dated the housing estate by some time - the presence of greengages in the hedge (which were grown in this area commercially before the 1960's) was one indicator, but the overall diversity of undergrowth plants was a clear measure that this hedge was historic. When I contacted City Deal about this, I calmly discussed with them what could be done to instead retain some biodiversity and restore the damage when the hedge was grubbed up and re-planted a little to the left (which was their plan). They initially seemed enthusiastic about this, to discuss what should be re-planted to retain local hedging culture, wildlife, and overall biodiversity, but it soon became apparent that they'd already bought more plants and that the discussion they were having was purely to try to appease me - they didn't meaningfully consult on the plants or replanting. My goal was to get a better planting scheme. Their goal was to make me believe I was being listened to while not changing a single part of any plan they had.

They claimed that the rush to get the job done at the end of March was to get the planting done before the end of the season. In truth, Spring had already come to Cambridge and this job was done too late. They claimed they were missing out sections of hedge where there were birds nesting already - by my estimation they came to within about 2m of nesting blackbirds with chainsaws and chippers. Needless to say those birds abandoned the nest. I think the rush came because they were in a hurry to spend money before the end of the financial year - the decision they took to cut and replace a hedge at the end of March makes no arboricultural or ecological sense.

I should stress that a mature hedgerow isn't just the trees, and that hedging isn't the same across the country (or even just this county). They're practical structures, and hedging custom across the UK has evolved differently with very good reason - what thrives is not the same in Cumbria and Kent! What we've got-replanted is a generic British mix, with numerous species that are entirely inappropriate for Cambridge. Dogwood, for example, can grow here but is a poor barrier species in our conditions. Spindle is in the mix, and it plays no part in local hedging culture. Alder buckthorn is in it too - its a tree that likes its toes wet, and when they stop watering the new plants it'll soon be out-competed. I certainly wouldn't plant any of these bright-berried toxic species right by a school in large numbers (and yes, they have).

But trees are only part of the full diversity of a hedge - and the City Deal have done their best to destroy any hope of the rest of the biodiversity of the hedge recovering. They've put down a mulch of wood-chips so the only undergrowth plants recovering are those with ineradicable root stocks. So rather than having a very varied habitat with multiple species, we're primarily seeing the site choked by bindweed, cow parsley and few others.

To make absolutely sure that the site is as wildlife hostile as possible they installed a wire fence with gaps at the bottom smaller than an adullt hedgehog. Its hard to envisage anything more stupid than that.

Now Kings Hedges hasn't got the busybody population that Milton Road has - the latter has a large, retired population who've owned their own homes for a long time and who know how to mobilise and badger for what they want. Kings Hedges doesn't - and City Deal took full advantage of that in cutting corners in their consultation. The idea that the hedge (an old boundary) was to be removed entirely wasn't in the consultation. City Deal staff insisted that they have consulted with hedge experts at the City Council but when I asked the City Council officer responsible for trees about their hedging expertise he told me that on the subject of native hedging, they don't have such expertise.

The amount of damage done to the local environment by this has been colossal -  but by hand-weeding and re-planting appropriate native plants (ideally sourced locally to retain local biodiversity) through the very damaging wood-chip mulch (which will itself ensure that any seeds surviving in the soil can't re-emerge as new plants, thats precisely what the mulch is for) we could still, perhaps, rescue something from a scheme which has been executed so very, very badly. The wire mesh blocking hedgehogs from the hedge urgently needs replacing with a simple wire fence that doesn't block wildlife. And owing to the wrong choice of plants being put in we need a much longer term commitment to replacing with more appropriate plants (specifically a mix with far more hawthorn, some elder and dog-rose) over the coming years. The degree to which the wrong plants have been tended this year means, I fear, we're looking at a much slowed death spiral.

I would rather hope you might lean on City Deal over this. If we're going to have ever more such projects going forward then messing up perfectly simple projects like this in a mad dash to get the wrong plants put in, at the wrong time, in the wrong way, is something we need to avoid of City Deal is to regain any trust locally. I'm aware they're trying to re-brand because they've got bad name already - perhaps fixing this could be something of an olive branch?

Thanks