SSSI-wrecking bridge spoils launch of major new vision
Prompted by local environmental campaigning to reverse years of neglect, the owners and managers of north London’s historic Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) Brent Reservoir (Welsh Harp) have this week published their long-awaited Welsh Harp Joint Vision in an effort to revive its future. Having campaigned for three years, and submitted many ideas for the document, I feel personally connected to its potential success.
The 139-page document - two years in the making - is essentially a lengthy wish-list of worthy ideas covering both conservation and recreation. It lacks a recommended action plan or any costings, yet it is hoped it will prove a springboard to serious third-party funding for renewal in various areas, and for this it should be generally applauded.
As one might hope, protecting the reservoir's SSSI status is central to the vision. On page 1 the owners and managers proudly proclaim, “The SSSI at the heart of the site will be properly cared for and maintained, creating an exemplar urban wildlife habitat, wild and natural", and the accompanying press release is full of similar feel-good quotes from key councillors and a mayoral representative.
(Above) North marsh wetlands during re-profiling in late 1980s
The vision also emphasises the need for "repairing existing habitats" and "re-establishing the wetlands". The wetlands - central to the SSSI status - were reshaped with public money in the 1980s to a world class-standard, but have since suffered decades of neglect through poor stewardship from owners and managers, and are now perilously overgrown and over-silted, with uncontrolled invasive species and numbers of protected species on a knife edge.
Yet, in the background to all this fizzy promise of renewal lies a long hangover. The owners and managers have quietly green-lit a scheme allowing developer Barratt PLC to build a 200-metre steel and concrete footbridge straight through the fragile north marsh, which will wreck a large part of the SSSI they are claiming they will protect. Such is the threat to breeding species, there is even a chance the reservoir could lose its SSSI status because of it. It is in complete contradiction to the ideals of the new vision.
(Above) Route of new bridge across north marsh wetlands as they were in 1990s
The spectre of the bridge appears on one of the many maps in the document, but no reference is made to it. In reality, co-owner of the Welsh Harp, Barnet Council, compulsorily purchased a chunk of the overgrown SSSI north marsh wetlands before granting planning permission for a long footbridge through it in 2018 to Barratt PLC, with the purpose of linking new private housing and a primary school on the bank of the reservoir with nearby playing fields. The wetlands were played down as low-value woodland during the planning process and the bridge went ahead against environmental opposition. Natural England signed off on the project and can still insist on ecological mitigation measures before work starts, but have been late to realise none can now be commensurate with the damage that will be done.
Who could stop this? Barnet Council itself has statutory powers to modify or revoke planning permission under s.97 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. Barnet Labour came to power at the council in May 2022, not only declaring an immediate climate emergency for the borough, but with a promise to review the bridge - previously commissioned by the outgoing Conservative administration - and find a better solution. Today, for reasons which are unclear, they are sitting on their hands pleading impotence.
It is now quietly acknowledged by council officers that the primary school is unlikely to be built, any redevelopment of the playing fields is years away, the bridge will get little use, and gates to it will have to be locked at dusk to avoid security risks. A cheaper, easier, non-destructive crossing option has also always existed.
Other signatories to the new Welsh Harp Joint Vision are co-owners Canal and River Trust and Brent Council, and a heavyweight list of managers and advisors - Natural England, the Environment Agency, London Wildlife Trust, Thames 21 and the Mayor of London. Unless the bridge is cancelled or the route altered, all of them will be party to the partial destruction of one of the oldest and most famous SSSIs in the UK, at the very moment they are loudly promising to protect it.
