Not credible

With the application about to go before the planning committee a report supporting the development, by Professor Chris Baines, a horticulturist turned environmental adviser best known for his occasional television appearances and writings on wildlife gardening, may therefore be confusing.

Developers desperate to prop up a foundering scheme often engage a "name" willing to endorse their proposals, (the "hired gun" ploy was used during the doomed Coppergate application). But "as advertised on television" guarantees nothing and purchased endorsements should be treated with caution.

Professor Baines should be given credit for good work telling people how to increase the wildlife value of gardens, urban landscapes and derelict sites. Perhaps led by this experience, he now advocates that the Osbaldwick meadows first be built over with a housing estate, its roads and the major civil engineering works developers hope will reduce the scheme's inherent flood risk; then, using wildlife gardening techniques, be given the quick fix of some new landscaping.

It is essential to distinguish brownfield sites with low biodiversity, which may benefit from suitable habitat creation, from long established, biodiverse greenfield habitats like Osbaldwick meadows, which need only protection and sympathetic management to flourish.

It is not clear whether Professor Baines has visited Osbaldwick meadows but he seems unaware that they are neither urban nor, despite several years of planned neglect by the city council, are they derelict.

Had he contacted either YWT or YNET, we could have helped him with this.

Now however, his report claiming sustainability and improved biodiversity for a scheme that starts by destroying or degrading 53 acres of "the most threatened habitat in lowland Yorkshire," is simply not credible.

Barry Potter,

Vice chairman, YNET,

Knapton Lane,

York.

Updated: 11:09 Monday, January 24, 2005