Thursday, 19 November 2015

Spurn - the future

I came across this Blog this afternoon. You might want to view it? There are some excellent responses.

I've been going to Spurn since 1987, when I had a wonderful May day out with some Grimsby birders, when I lived in sunny Scunny.  I saw Sedge Warbler, Cuckoo and Redstart for the first time along with Night Heron, Bluethroat and Temminck's Stint amongst others. An interesting day! I realized there and then that this place was special. It saddens me to see wildlife bodies at odds with each other. It's hard enough to protect wildlife and habitats as it is! The same situation has occurred in the past in the LDV. Yorkshire Wildlife Trust being one of the parties on both occasions.

These conflicts can become nasty. I won't go into detail but there were some unsavoury scenes on occasion, particularly at Wheldrake Ings in the 90's. One dispute was a difference of opinion over water levels. Flora v Fauna.

Trouble is, with all disputes, both sides think they are "right".

Regarding Spurn, here's a few of my own observations...

  • Trying to control the landscape is futile (as the Borg used to say). The recent breech only served to emphasize this. It's a natural island.
  • YWT have lost considerable revenue as cars can no longer go down to the Point.
  • The restoration of the Lighthouse now seems a "white elephant".
  • I believe the all terrain vehicle bought to transverse the breech is proving not to be so.
For me, it seems that YWT want to "tidy" Spurn up, restrict access to certain areas and oh, make money! They need to re-coup some of the lost revenue caused by the breech. To be fair parking can be a problem on occasions but even on major twitches, land is made available. I certainly wouldn't want another large car park created with loss of habitat.

The proposed visitor centre is another major concern. Where? How big? etc. All these things are to be decided by greater minds than mine.

Personally I hope that things are left as natural as possible with the least impact on the area. It's a wonderful wilderness. YWT's motives are mainly financial. Something IS going to happen, I just hope the Wildlife doesn't suffer at the hands of the Humans...

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