§ Mr. Chris Smithasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list all those sites of special scientific interest and areas in national parks which have been damaged or destroyed as a result of the three-month period allowed under section 28 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981; and if he will give details of the nature of the operations that have given rise in each case to damage or destruction.
§ Mr. WaldegraveI am advised by the Nature Conservancy Council that the following 11 proposed sites of special scientific interest were either damaged or destroyed during the three-month period following service of a notice under section 28(2) of the Wildlife and Countryside Act. In some cases the damage has been slight: in two cases—Gillet's meadow and Kingsthorpe scrub field — the NCC considers that the scientific interest of the whole site has been destroyed.
- Ripon parks, North Yorkshire—rotovation
- Jeffrye bog, North Yorkshire—ditch clearance and hedge removal
- Kingsthorpe scrub field, Northants — ploughing and bulldozing
- Gillett' s meadow (Yardley Hastings), Northants—ploughing
- Radmore Farm Marsh, Northants—drainage and reseeding Black mountains, Hereford and Worcester—ploughing Rhos Derlwyn-Fawr, Dyfed—ploughing
- Comins Capel-Betws, Dyfed—burning and rotovation Gwyneunydd Hafod-Wen, Powys—ploughing
- Tons Warren, Wigtown, Dumfries and Galloway —bulldozing
- Dalbeath Marsh, Dunfermline—dumping
The three-month notification period applies in national parks only where a proposed site of special scientific interest lies within such an area.
§ Mr. Chris Smithasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list all those sites of special 114W scientific interest which have been subsequently de-scheduled by the Nature Conservancy Council since 1970 as a result of damaging development; and if he will give details of the main habitat classification of each site , the area of land of special nature conservation which has been lost, the type of activity giving rise to the damage, and the month and year in which it occurred.
§ Mr. WaldegraveI regret that the NCC would not be able to provide this information without disproportionate cost and an undesirable diversion of staff from the priority task of completing renotifications as soon as practicable and so better safeguarding areas of special scientific interest.