Giving with one hand, taking away with the other.

Nuffield Health may need new premises, but that doesn’t mean they should build them next to Talbot Heath. By building here, they are contributing to increased congestion and pollution on the already busy Wallisdown Road (and other local roads), which is ultimately damaging to health, while simultaneously providing healthcare services.

Do the management team at Nuffield Health not care about the environment? Through this application, they would appear not to. And yet, is it not clear that the environment and people’s health is intertwined?

Talbot Village Trust have donated to local causes for years, all funded by allowing development of precious greenfield sites bequeathed to the Trust by the Talbot sisters. I wonder how many of the causes to which they have given money, know that it comes from the depletion of the natural environment around Talbot Heath, the destruction of the farms the Talbot sisters once used to provide work for poor local people.

Heathland is particularly sensitive to the emissions from vehicles. It gets into the soil and affects the plants which grow there. Further traffic around the university campus and ever closer to the Heath will only put it under more pressure, even if the Heath is not built on. Take away Highmoor Farm, and many of the bird species which nest on the Heath but use the farm as foraging habitat, will disappear. Not to mention animal and insect species. How does this help to improve biodiversity? It doesn’t.

The last Heathland Support Area application submitted by Talbot Village Trust was rejected by BCP Council in the summer of 2022, because it WOULD NOT protect the Heath. Nothing has changed.