Aggregate Industries wants to grub many of them up, saying whatever it can to dismiss their importance.
The company's wildlife assessments of Straitgate Farm are years out of date. Surveys of hedgerows, dormice, bats, birds, badgers, etc., were all performed back in 2013. Devon County Council requested an update, and last year a consultant working on behalf of Aggregate Industries had a bit of a walkabout. The independence of this ecologist is obviously questionable given this Freudian slip:
Mike was accompanied by My Clive Tompkins of Aggregate Industries during the visit.
But not only for that reason. On the subject of hedgerows, the ecologist reckoned "most have been recently flailed back hard." It was another fabrication, as the above photo taken this week confirms.
