Wildlife trust issues formal objection to £200m business park

A wildlife charity has formally objected to the building of a £200m business park, claiming the development could affect at-risk birds.

Yorkshire Wildlife Trust has lodged an objection to East Riding of Yorkshire Council about the proposed development near Hedon, within the Holderness area of the East Riding of Yorkshire.

Plans for the Yorkshire Energy Park include a data centre, education campus and power station.

Yorkshire Wildlife Trust says there is evidence that the site has been found to support peak counts of more than 220 curlew, which represents over 8% of the latest curlew numbers for the Humber Estuary.

It says the curlew is becoming increasingly rare and was added to the UK red list in December 2015.

The Yorkshire Energy Park project is a joint venture between Sewell, Eco Parks Developments Ltd and renewable energy company Chiltern.

Sewell said that half of the site had been set aside for wildlife.

Lauren Garside, conservation planning officer for Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, said: “The proposed development land at Hedon is functionally linked to the Humber Estuary Special Protection Area (SPA) because of its importance in supporting the threatened curlew. It should therefore be offered the same protection as land within the SPA. For this very reason The Trust is of the opinion that the planning application at the very least undergoes an assessment under the Habitats Regulations.

“Curlew currently utilise 88 hectares of the site, whilst the proposed mitigation consists of setting aside 46 hectares for the species, a significant loss of habitat. In addition, no offsite mitigation has been proposed at present. The loss of habitat will be further compounded by the noise, artificial lighting and visual disturbance that the construction period and resulting development will bring.”

Rob Cawkwell, Yorkshire Energy Park’s project director, said: “The outline planning application contains a number of detailed reports and studies relating to the use of the site by birds and how we have accommodated and encouraged this continued use in our final proposals.”

A planning application for the site, on a former aerodrome near Hull, has been submitted to East Riding of Yorkshire Council.

Sewell Group said the scheme could create more than 1,000 jobs.