Woods to cherish

Your correspondent Derek Waller (‘Anti-roads lobby living in the past’, Gazette letters, July 27) makes a number of points in favour of a new bypass for Arundel on the A27, including an argument in favour of a route through Tortington Common, on the grounds that this area is primarily a pine wood, and is defined as re-planted ancient woodland.
By The Newsroom
Published 30th Aug 2014, 11:00 BST
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It is clear that Mr Waller considers this area to be of lesser worth than Binsted Wood, an area of ancient semi-natural woodland (ASNW) to the west. But in this regard, Mr Waller has clearly misunderstood the value of ancient woodland.

Both Tortington Common and Binsted Wood are registered as ancient woodland in the recently-revised Ancient Woodland Inventory for West Sussex.

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Ancient woodland is defined as an area that has been wooded continuously since 1600 AD. Since that time, the actual tree stock may well have been felled, and indeed replanted many times, in some cases with conifers. These areas are known as plantations on ancient woodland sites (PAWS).

The fact that there are no veteran trees present in such areas does not diminish their worth, for it is the complex and undisturbed features of the woodland floor that make these areas an irreplaceable, wildlife-rich habitat, including the woodland flora and the soils, home to some of the most hidden, but also the most functionally important elements of a woodland’s system such as mycorrhizal fungi.

The soil seed bank, having taken centuries to build up, will often retain a high diversity of dormant ancient woodland plants, unseen elsewhere. As stated by the Woodland Trust, these areas are a finite resource which can never be replaced, and what little remains today is very precious.

Natural England’s standing advice for ancient woodland and veteran trees clearly sets out the differences between PAWS sites and ASNW sites; but it attests that as both are ancient woodland, and both types should be treated equally in terms of the protection afforded to ancient woodland in the NPPF (National Planning Policy Framework).

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Is Mr Waller’s keenness not to get caught in traffic during two small periods of rush hour worth the desecration and terminal destruction of an area of nationally important irreplaceable resource?

Karen Whitehouse

Bernard Road

Arundel

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Related topics:WoodsArundelA27