It is now a exactly one year since our campaign was featured in the Guardian Newspaper and our founder was given the Guardian Angel award for starting the campaign to protect Leather Lane and Ilona.
Well, one year on and Ilona is still standing, and through the commitment of the local support received from residents, councillors and even Sarah Green MP, she is now registered as a veteran tree with the Woodland Trust.
EKFB have replaced the barriers delimiting the root protection zone, and added some signs explaining why.
With regards Leather Lane, nothing more has been destroyed since last year. Again, all the trees are still standing and the decision about the new bridge has not been made - so it is still possible that all remaining trees will be saved.
Further data collected last year by the Leather Lane Conservation Group has been analysed, and the latest report shows that the lane is potentially even more important to bat ecology and a site of regional importance. A trend towards elevated numbers of bats in late summer, particularly the rare barbastelle, is indicative of Leather lane being a juvenile sustenance zone. This makes it critical that the wildlife corridor is not subjected to any further fragmentation.
We are now also campaigning for a green overbridge (where the new lane crosses over the HS2 tracks), with planting, to reconnect the corridor and encourage wildlife and bats to continue to commute and forage along the lane, while still continuing the campaign to have the new bridge to the north of the existing lane, and so preserve the remaining trees.
We are asking for a commitment from HS2 with regards the disused parts of the current Leather Lane - we are asking them to consider setting up Leather Lane as a bat SAC (Special Area of Conservation) - accessible to local community groups - which would help HS2 to meet it’s commitment to protecting biodiversity.
How you can help:
Please continue to donate to our crowdfunder here:
Please continue to share our local petition with your friends and family. For friends, family and colleagues that are not local to Leather Lane, you can email them our Change.Org petition to sign. We have over 43,000 signatures and it would be amazing to get this figure to 50,000.
You can also help by following us on our social media channels below, sharing our Facebook posts, retweeting our Tweets and reposting our stories on Instagram.
Facebook: www.facebook.com/SaveLeatherLaneOaks
Twitter: https://twitter.com/OaksSave
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ilonatheoak
Website:
https://saveleatherlane-wp.org.uk
If you can assist in any way, please let us know by replying to this email. Any help will be most gratefully received, no matter how small.