Letter to the Parish Council
Bee Orchid Decimation on the By-Pass
Last June I wrote to the Cambridgeshire County Council Environment Support
Officer, and told her of my concern regarding the plight of the bee orchids on
the Swaffham Prior by-pass, which were under threat from an insensitive
grass-cutting regime; I enquired if the verges could be granted 'protected
roadside verge' status. The Environment Support Officer wrote to the Bio
Diversity Officer, who wrote to me, stating "At the moment we don't
have any plans to designate any new verges because we are going through a
review process to make sure those we have designated already are worthy of
protection".
In October I wrote to the Parish Council expressing my concerns that the bee orchids were under threat from insensitive ground work. I believe that the Parish Council wrote to the County Council, expressing their concerns regarding the plight of the bee orchids. I believe that a County Council Officer replied to the Parish Council and made some vague statements about performing some sort of review, at some undefined point in the future.
This June I have walked along the by-pass and observed the bee orchids, and taken more photographs. The photographs accompanying this letter were taken on the 9th and 10th of June. They show a small number of orchids, not as many as in years past, but encouragingly this year the orchids have spread across the verge. At some point on Tuesday 10th June the verges were cut. The orchids, along with countless other flowering plants have been decimated. What was a lush display of specialised chalkland flowers is now a featureless manicured verge, which stretches from Ipswich to Cambridge.
This year I identified a Yellow Vetchling; a rare plant designated 'Vulnerable'in the Red Data Book lists. Swaffham Prior's specimen is no longer vulnerable, it is extinct. It will not set seed and it is unlikely that we will see another on the by-pass.
I found the remains of one bee orchid, it is enclosed. Please take it away with you; show it to your family and friends; show it to the school children; some may be interested to see what bee orchids look like, many will not; explain that whilst rare and vulnerable plants are becoming extinct just yards from our homes it is still possible to see, meet, and conduct important reviews with a few dodos and dinosaurs