onionbagblog

This is rather encouraging news as we approach spring in Wivenhoe and start to think about all things bright and beautiful: Colchester Borough Council looks to be appeasing the rather ugly mess made by the Environment Agency during the sea wall clearance along the Wivenhoe Trail, by planting 750 hedging plants. Locals in were left feeling rather angry, not to mention slightly exposed, when the Environment Agency steamed in last February with a poorly publicised vegetation clearance.

“Over the last two years the Agency has cleared vegetation from flood defences throughout Essex and south Suffolk to help maintain more than 300km of sea and estuary walls that protect people and property from flooding.

Now Colchester Borough Council’s country park team has been given Hawthorn, Blackthorn and Native Dogwood plants for planting at Hythe Lagoons this February. They will help to provide cover for the lagoon’s birds, and the Blackthorn and Hawthorn berries will provide food for the birds during the winter.”

And so it would seem that the loss along the Wivenhoe Trail is to the gain of the opposite Hythe Lagoons. But hey hoe - it’s all good news that some of the beauty is about to be returned back to our natural landscape.

The one size fits all mass clearance along the East coast by the Environment Agency has been open to question in Wivenhoe. The policy may be suitable for some of the seawall along the Sussex coast, but applying the same principle down in North Essex may not have environmental benefits for the hyperlocal… hedgerows.

You break our legs, and we say thank you when you offer us crutches, etc.

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