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Burpham Court Farm To Become Nature Reserve For All To Enjoy
Published on: 13 Jan, 2016
Updated on: 13 Jan, 2016
The future of Burpham Court Farm has been secured thanks to a new partnership between Guildford Borough Council and Surrey Wildlife Trust.
Burpham Court Farm, off Clay Lane, Guildford.
Both parties have agreed to develop a new vision to secure the site as a nature reserve that people can enjoy.
Guildford Borough Council says that Burpham Court Farm is an important area of green space within the Wey Valley Landscape, with both woodland and wetland habitats. The 32-hectare farm was acquired by the council in 1990 and was leased and used as a conservation centre until 2009.
Surrey Wildlife Trust currently uses the farm for livestock grazing under a temporary licence with the council.
The leader of Guildford Borough Council, Cllr Paul Spooner, said: “Burpham Court Farm is an important landscape which provides a wetland habitat for many plants and animals.
“We believe there is the potential to transform the site into an excellent nature reserve which can be enjoyed by the whole community, and we will be working closely with Surrey Wildlife Trust to achieve this.”
The chief executive of Surrey Wildlife Trust, Nigel Davenport, has added: “The River Wey is one of Surrey’s most important habitats for wildlife and we are delighted to be working with Guildford Borough Council to protect this vital stretch.
Guildford Borough Council’s lead councillor for rural economy, countryside, parks and leisure, Richard Billington, said that the council will be setting up a project board to develop a vision for the future of the site with Surrey Wildlife Trust soon.
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Jim Allen
January 13, 2016 at 9:31 am
The quote: “Burpham Court Farm is an important landscape which provides a wetland habitat for many plants an animals”
That is because it is an active flood plain, so why is Councillor Spooner and others trying to turn it into a lake by damming this very site to drive a road through it?
The noise envelope of the new road will make it a traffic island of pollution and visual disturbance.
Currently, in noise terms it is relatively tranquil.
It won’t be once a link road is installed and trucks are thundering around three sides of it.
We need to decided what we want for our communities.
‘Dictate from on high’, such that a vast expenditure (ultimately at residents’ expense if the projects fail) on unneeded infrastructure going in the wrong direction, which if constructed, will be without document proof of business need, engineering common sense, or genuine current traffic flow knowledge, which will destroy our communities?
Or do we work from the basis such that our important landscapes are protected and common sense applied to commercial regeneration projects?
Mary Bedforth
January 13, 2016 at 8:26 pm
RIP Bob Dearnley. He was hounded.
[Ed: Bob Dearnley leased the farm from Guildford Borough Council and not only raised rare breed livestock but opened it as a farm park for families. He had a long-running dispute with various authorities over what he claimed were the raising of the levels of the River Wey that resulted in his fields being flooded. He went bankrupt in 2006 and sadly committed suicide on his farm in 2009.]