WRPS AGM & ANNUAL TALK UPDATE

Around 30 people attended the meeting on Tuesday 22nd Nov where Richard Townley (Chairman) gave his 2021-2022 Annual Report which you can find here.

This was followed by an excellent talk on the Cambridge Nature Recovery Network by Martin Baker (Conservation Officer, BCN Wildlife Trusts) which you can find here. At the start Martin made the point that Cambridge itself has surprisingly limited access to wildlife areas. He outlined the background to the Network’s important and detailed report on how existing islands of wildlife habitat within approximately 10km of Cambridge could be joined up. This involves engaging directly with local landowners (mainly famers) to get their views and help. He explained how this is leading to the innovative use of less productive land to create natural wildlife corridors and new habitat areas. Funding some of these developments can be challenging but he is also developing relationships with some of our local businesses who are interested in making Cambridge an attractive place to work. He focussed on our local “Cambridge Fen” section with its three important SSSIs and emphasised what could be done now to expand and support the existing habitats and wildlife - even allowing for our intermittently dry chalk streams and the problems caused by abstraction.

Important related links you may be interested in are –

Cambridge Nature Recovery Network.

https://cambridgenaturenetwork.org/

Water Resources East Draft Report

https://wre.org.uk/the-draft-regional-plan/