Bristol Green Statement on Yew Tree Farm

In response to the recent ecological destruction that has taken place on Yew Tree Farm, a Site of Nature Conservation Interest (SNCI), Bristol’s Green group of councillors have issued the following statement:

Following the ‘wanton vindictive destruction’ carried out within the SNCI protected Yew Tree Farm last week, Bristol Green Party Councillors call for an immediate end to all destructive activity taking place. The Green Group have said all work must cease until a full investigation has taken place into the recent episode of ecocide, to ensure that no further ecological destruction is caused to the Yew Tree Farm SNCI and the neighbouring Colliters Brook SNCI.

We are absolutely disgusted to hear that Bristol City Council appears to have entered into agreement with the individual largely responsible for the destruction at Yew Tree Farm to manage the council’s own land within the neighbouring Colliters Brook SNCI.  If this is true, it is a complete failure of the council to conduct due diligence regarding the past record of the individual concerned despite multiple warnings from members of the public. We now have strong, validated concerns that the devastation caused on a species rich hay meadow and ancient hedgerow at Yew Tree Farm will also now take place at Colliters Brook, unless immediate preventative action is taken.

Last summer councillors from all parties, activists and local people came together to show their support for preserving the ancient hedgerow and the nature rich land around Bristol’s last working farm. That such damage has been done, seemingly with no intervention from the administration, is devastating. The failure of the council to respond to the destruction makes a mockery of the Labour Mayor’s declaration of an ecological emergency and exposes it for the publicity stunt that it was.

Concerns have already been raised about activity that has taken place on the council land within the neighbouring Colliters Brook, including damage to a 200 year old oak tree and churning up of the topsoil. Furthermore, the identification of the presence of dormice on the land, potentially one of only two sites within the whole of Bristol to show evidence of dormice, appears to have been completely ignored.

Yew Tree Farm and its surrounding SNCI are a major source of biodiversity and nature within South Bristol and the city as a whole.

We therefore call upon Bristol City Council, the Mayor and the cabinet members responsible to take immediate responsibility for the council’s errors and failures, both administrative and political, that have either enabled or encouraged activities that led to the recent destruction at Yew Tree Farm SNCI.

We call on them to:

1. Provide a full and public report on what enforcement has been taken in regard to destructive activity on Yew Tree Farm and Colliters Brook SNCIs. This includes the failure to correctly determine the original application for a gate in the ancient hedgerow at Yew Tree Farm, and what actions were taken to ensure that, following this failure, the subsequent ecological action plan regarding the location and width of the gate was correctly followed.
2. Fully co-operate with any investigation from Avon and Somerset Police and Natural England into any criminal and/or civil damages, and to take the maximum possible action against those found to be liable.
3. Halt all work on the South Bristol Crematorium Expansion, including signing any contracts for the drainage structure until full ecological surveys are done for dormice, bats, invertebrates and otters at the appropriate time of year.
4. Immediately revoke any lease or agreement with any company or individual to manage or work council owned land until due diligence has taken place regarding their involvement in the destruction of any SNCI land (including ancient hedgerow) at either Yew Tree Farm SNCI or Colliters Brook SNCI.
5. Ensure that any lease or licence issued for SNCI land owned by the council includes a thorough investigation of the track record of the applicant regarding the protection of nature and biodiversity on other sites within their ownership and/or management.
6. Review and rethink the South Bristol Crematorium Expansion to ensure that it meets Bristol City Council’s commitment to ecology and nature as identified in the declaration of an Ecological Emergency and associated Action Plan.
7. Make it clear that the proposal in the 2019 Local Plan Review to redesignate part of the Green Belt around Yew Tree Farm for development was a major error, an error that inevitably has encouraged speculative developers to pursue options to develop the land – with inevitable consequences.

As a result of the decision by the Labour Mayor, bolstered by a Labour majority council, to encourage development of nature rich and biodiverse land at Yew Tree Farm in 2019, other players have now become involved.

The Bristol Green Party therefore also calls on the following organisations to accept that any proposal for residential development on Yew Tree Farm SNCI will not be considered appropriate by Bristol City Council, as made clear in the draft Local Plan.  This includes the following:

We call upon Redrow/Barratt to:

• End their option on part of Yew Tree Farm SNCI to redevelop the site, and to clearly and publicly condemn the damage caused to the Yew Tree Farm SNCI.

We call upon David James/Newcombe Estates to:

1. End any agreement with the individual/organisation responsible for the ecological damage caused at Yew Tree Farm SNCI.
2. Establish a new agreement with the current occupier of Yew Tree Farm and work with them to restore the ecology status of the field.
3. Remove the new gate in the ancient hedgerow and repair and replant the hedgerow so that it can be restored, eventually, to the nature rich environment that pre-existed the installation of said gate.

The destruction caused to the Yew Tree Farm SNCI, as well as the damage to the Colliters Brook SNCI is a devastating blow to Bristol’s image as a green, nature loving city.  As Greens, we take the protection of nature and biodiversity seriously.  Earlier this year, in the summer, an enormous number of local residents gave up their time to support Yew Tree Farm and the tireless work Catherine Withers has done to promote nature and wellbeing in our city. The residents created a human chain along much of the length of the hedgerow that has now been devastated. Those residents, and Catherine, have been betrayed by those who are quick to promote themselves as “green” but disappear when the fair weather has gone.

Bristol Green Party will stand by Yew Tree Farm, and will continue to fight alongside Catherine Withers, local residents and campaigners, to halt and reverse the destruction of such a valuable part of Bristol’s natural heritage.  We call upon others to do the same.