….Our year continues…..

Look what we have done in 2022 with your help in our achievement video!

April

As the weather warmed up, the bats began to come out of hibernation and the campaign started monitoring and recording bat activity in Leather Lane once more. This information has been collected continually over the year and analysed by professional ecologists and bat experts. Their reports have been presented to Buckinghamshire Council and confirm the presence of at least 8 species of bats, including the endangered barbastelle bat, regularly commuting and foraging along Leather Lane. The high level of bat activity and increasing numbers towards late summer suggests how vitally important the habitat of Leather Lane is to the conservation of the local bat population.

May

The Campaign team met with HS2’s sub-contractors and members of Buckinghamshire Council. Ecological and engineering experts provided the evidence that the Campaign’s overbridge design is not only a viable engineering alternative but that it saves all the remaining trees; therefore avoiding further fragmentation of Leather Lane as a crucial wildlife corridor.

EKFB also committed to carrying out their own ecological bat surveys over the year to inform the decision-making process and agreed to share and discuss this information with Bucks council ecology team and the campaign ecologists.

June

As a direct result of the campaign’s observant and tenacious monitoring, EKFB conceded that they had been neglectful in their duty to protect the roots of all the oak trees in Leather Lane from damage during construction. A Root Protection Zone was then immediately established; something that should have been put in place before work even started at the site, in accordance with HS2’s own tree protection policy.
There is still so much more to do in 2023! Please help by donating to our crowdfunder here: https://tinyurl.com/5n8wtcm3