Park or Nature Reserve

Should we be congratulating the South Somerset District Council and their employees for the efforts made at the Chard Nature Reserve after another year of habitat destruction?

They have after all successfully managed to convert the nature area into a country park without many local users noticing, that is unless you ignore all the wildlife experts and bird watchers who's cries to protect the area as a Nature Reserve have gone unheeded over the years and ignored as the SSDC who have told us in the past “no one is going to tell them how to run Chard Reservoir Nature Reserve” end quote. Not even the ratepayers have a say?

Lets look at the definition of a Nature Reserve :-

"A nature reserve (natural reserve, nature preserve, natural preserve) is a protected area of importance for wildlife, flora, fauna or features of geological or other special interest, which is reserved and managed for conservation and to provide special opportunities for study or research".

Consider this in comparison to the definition of a country park:-

"The purpose of a country park is to provide a place that has a natural, rural atmosphere for visitors who do not necessarily want to go out into the wider countryside. Visitors can enjoy a public open space with an informal atmosphere, as opposed to a formal park as might be found in an urban area. For this reason country parks are usually found close to or on the edge of built-up areas, and rarely in the wider countryside".

You can see that Chard LNR ticks all the boxes as a country park. This should be of no surprise as the management approach of SSDC which manages Yeovil and Ham Hill Country Parks and its philosophy extends to Chard Reservoir where public access is made paramount and conservation is last on their list. This is apparent in the concentration of effort of the management to attain the Green Flag status which has little to do with conservation and more to do with public access.

No attempt has been made in the last 6 years to make fresh plantings of trees that would benefit the resident or visiting population of bird life that remain. Anyone can tell you that if you want wildlife they must be provided with a source of food. In denuding the reserve of this source of food you also drive away wildlife.

Public access should be managed in this reserve to protect what little wildlife still exists here.

As ratepayers we contribute to the cost of running this place and it does seem reasonable to me that local Chard residents should have some say in the running of this place. The formation Chard Friends of the Reservoir group may be an option or simply to pressure those “yes men” appointed on the steering group to do something more positive.

An alternative is to officially downgrade this place as a Country Park, Angling venue and dog exercise area for that is what it is.
Thank you SSDC and all the willing people who have unwittingly supported them in depriving us of a place that could have been good for nature.