Campaigners opposed to massive Derbyshire housing scheme highlight harmful Japanese knotweed fears

Bolsover District Council is considering Waystone Ltd’s planning application for a 24 hectare, mixed development of employment land with approximately 1,800 residential dwellings and other community and commercial facilities called Clowne Garden Village.

Residents from Clowne and nearby Barlborough have raised concerns about the possible impact on highways, drainage, flooding, and existing services, as well as the potential loss of countryside and the impact on wildlife.

Clowne Garden Village Action Group protestors have also raised further concerns following reports that there is a large patch of potentially harmful Japanese knotweed on land Sitwell Estates is planning to sell as part of the development and the weed is allegedly encroaching on Harlesthorpe Dam wall.

Action group campaigner Dom Webb said: “Our Action Group recently met with Mrs Sibering, the owner of Harlesthorpe Dam, and discussed a number of issues relating to the proposed development of 1800 homes in Clowne.

“Interestingly, the issue of Japanese knotweed came up as it transpires the land Sitwell Estates are going to sell contains a rather large patch of the infamous knotweed that is now encroaching on the dam wall. It is maybe two or three metres away from the wall.”

Mr Webb also claims that the knoweed has also contaminated the water stream and an area further downstream just before the final culvert that goes through to Linear Park, in Clowne, which forms part of the multi-million pound regeneration of the old railway line into the Greenway.

Japanese knotweed is notorious for spreading rapidly in the summer with bamboo-like stems that seasonally emerge from underground and can grow up to 7ft suppressing other plants, according to the Royal Horticultural Society.

The RHS also states that Japanese knotweed is very difficult to remove and is subject to new legislation covering its control.

Residents from the nearby villages of Clowne and Barlborough have raised many concerns about the proposed Clowne Garden Village at public consultations and with hundreds of letters to the council about plans to develop the site on greenfield land north of Clowne, including part of the village centre off Hickinwood Lane.

But Waystone and the council have been consulting with National England, the Coal Authority, Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, the Environment Agency, Highways England, Yorkshire Water, Derbyshire County Council and others.

The action group opposed to the development has already submitted a letter of protest raising concerns about Japanese knotweed to consultee Derbyshire Wildlife Trust asking them to revisit all the wildlife and ecology issues relating to the planning application.

Derbyshire Wildlife Trust has highlighted to Bolsover District Council the need to eradicate Japanese knotweed on the proposed development site.

It has stressed to the council that if the authority is minded to approve the planning application, certain conditions should be met including the completion of a Construction Environment Management Plan and a Landscape and Ecological Management Plan.