Home and garden

Has Prospect Park become too tidy for wildlife?
advertisement

Rural Reading - Prospect Park too tidy for wildlife?

By Adrian Lawson
February 22, 2010

Last week I wrote about the beautiful song of the blackbird.

I said that they are common and widespread and that you can find them anywhere, more or less. Well I just went to one place that was excellent for blackbirds because there was a dense shrubbery that they could nest in.

The dense vegetation also lent a backdrop to the pond in Prospect Park so that visitors could feel isolated from the hustle and bustle of the rest of the park, where there are tennis courts, the drive to Mansion House and five-a-side is played.

But not any more.

Almost the whole shrubbery has been removed. There is nowhere for blackbirds to nest, the view of the pond is spoilt – you can see the cars and the tennis players – and at night the floodlighting streams across the pond. This is a continuation of a ‘tidy up’ trend in the park that has led to the loss of a lot of nesting places for birds.

The trouble is there was no warning. By the time I saw it, it was already done and too late to have any discussion about it.

The sad thing is that there is so much that does need doing in this park, but the emphasis seems to be on removing all the shrubbery.

I am so upset I can’t even face speaking to the people in the parks department to find out why this is.

I worked there for 20 years and I thought a little bit of consideration for wildlife had become mainstream in parks management. But it seems that they have reverted to the Victorian attitude that parks were only for people, and nothing else.

Now I am faced with an increasingly sterile place that, if the current trend continues, will see few birds singing in the park and no ducks raising their young.

I doubt the parks staff will read this article. If they did it would surely be because they have some awareness of how important natural things are to people.

It would be nice to know what others think.

| Submit Comments | View Comments (5)

« Previous Story | Next Story »

Most recent user comments 5 of 5

Show 15 | 25 | 50 per page

I went for a walk there today and was very surprised to see the work Adrian described. It puzzles me how the council can afford to do work like this, but I think he is right to be upset for the wildlife. It would be a real shame if there were no birds singing in the park.

szegerely, reading
25/02/2010 at 22:30

There is space aplenty in Prospect Park for humans AND wildlife. I haven't been to the pond since last summer, but both I and my children enjoyed walking around the cool, shady area there.

If this will indeed mean that the birds leave the park then shame on whoever gave the instruction to remove the shrubbery.

Common Cents, Reading
25/02/2010 at 14:51

As one who did his courting in Prospect Park fifty odd years ago I can sympathise to some degree. May I ask was the decision taken by some child with a degree in Managment or by an experianced sympathetic Park Keeper?l I was horrified when they built those dreeadfull Southcote flats opposite, but now I do not suppose the younger generation even notices them?

ivor, the wirral
22/02/2010 at 17:35

What an extraordinary submission. Adrian was just trying to express his frustration with RBC's Parks Management and their inability to factor in wildlife options for green spaces and you come lumbering in with this roundhouse. All Councils have a duty and legal requirement to promote and protect bio-diversity wherever possible and all Adrian is asking is that RBC have a good think before they start removing habitats for parkland birds when it seems unnecessary to do so. As for The reservoir in Bath Road being a more valuable and known natural wildlife habitat than Prospect Park I suggest you instead of trying to reverse the years that never were at Bath Road reservoir you support Adrian in his views that RBC as a whole do not have wildlife and diversity as a high enough priority and could easily reverse that by putting some thought into Parks Management decisions. Or have I strayed into a local bun fight/grudge match against two old protaganists without realising it ? surely we should do anything to enhance/promote/cherish wildlife diversity wherever we can find it.

Larkin
22/02/2010 at 15:49

Adrian Lawson’s clarion (or blackbird) call to save Prospect Park from becoming “more sterile” is no doubt very heartfelt – and good on him.

As he will know the Park was originally a farm and the owner at the time Benjamin Child turned it into a mansion house in the 1760’s. The parkland and gardens once belonged to the big house and the Liebenrood family rebuilt the it in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries to its now design. It has been in the council’s hands since they bought it in 1901.

It has always been a cultivated park more so than a wildlife park and prior to the 1920’s much of the grass was left to grow long. The woodland behind the Mansion House still exists but the Park has been cultivated - cultivated into a sports and past time amenity where the good citizens can lay out under the sun on warm summer days, picnic, play tennis, bowls, football, rugby and cricket. Even have a meal and a drink at the beautifully restored Grade II Mansion House. Fabulous Adrian. Can I suggest that instead of trying to reverse the years that never were at Prospect Park you lend your support and energies to the Reservoir Campaign in Bath Road to save a more valuable and known natural wildlife habitat?