Illustration by John Sadler www.johnsadlerillustration.com

• IS Camden Council presiding over ecocide?

It was worrying to read that bats are no longer seen foraging at twilight around King’s Cross, (Perhaps the bat colonies are no more? June 10).

What has happened to the roosts in the disused portal that has been brought into use again?

But from May the bats coming out of hibernation need trees for foraging as well as mating and maternity roosts, so it is a major concern that so many trees in south Camden around the mainline stations have been felled by High Speed 2, by Camden Council itself, and by other developers.

Really badly affected is Adelaide Road, where HS2 have cut down an entire woodland without providing the required tree and environmental surveys.

I challenged them at their quarterly meeting, but they relied on having found an ecologist back in 2015 who said there were no bats and no licence to destroy their habitat was required; as if the Euston tunnels and disused portals had not been full of bats between Adelaide Road and King Henry’s Road.

HS2 does not even seem willing to reinstate the green corridor along the track beside Adelaide Road, even though they assured the House of Lords select committee (in exhibit M) that they would do so, in order to obtain permission to destroy three-fifths of the Adelaide Road woodland.

In the event, despite our protests, they have destroyed 100 per cent: 500 trees, all the shrubs and undergrowth and wildflowers, losing the lizards and bugs that feed the bats and birds.

The only response from HS2 seems to be that they find it easier to work on a site if they completely destroy everything there instead of working with the community to save as many trees as possible for reinstatement when they are gone.

The complaints process is non-functioning. I have not even received acknowledgement of my escalating these complaints to the next level. The council is as silent as HS2 and the complaints commissioners.

I have received no information yet about our bat population baseline and the impact of the infrastructure projects and tree-felling on their survival.

Apparently the birds are not nesting around Adelaide Road, so we need speedy intervention to save our trees, insects and the environment before south Camden loses our birds as well as the bats.

DOROTHEA HACKMAN
Chair, Camden Civic Society
camdencivicsociety@gmail.com