Residents speak out as 'wildlife habitat' in Felpham destroyed

The grounds are attached to Outerwyke Farmhouse on Felpham Way, which has been unoccupied and untended for several decades. The overgrown gardens have since, residents claim, become home to a wide variety of protected animals and fauna, including bats, reptiles and fauna.

The land has since been subjected to an enforcement notice from Arun District Council mandating low-level clearance of the foliage. Residents claim this work has since started without the submission of an ecological survey. Simon Wild, who lives in Felpham with his wife Jaine, a Felpham Parish Councillor, said:

“When an enforcement notice went in, there should have been a requirement to have an ecological study, and that ecologist would have demanded some habitat remained and carried out mitigation measures to ensure protected species were not destroyed.

If that needed the owner to apply for planning permission then that is what should have happened. While we have notified the police of Wildlife and Countryside Act offences, the evidence has been destroyed.”

Presented with this, a spokesperson for Arun District Council said: “We are unable to require an ecological survey to be done as the legislation used to serve the notice is solely to require clearance or work to prevent the harbourage of vermin. The owner has instructed their own contractor to carry out the work on their private land and it is for them to decide between them what they want cleared.”

Together, Jaine and Simon Wild run West Sussex Wildlife Protection, an action group devoted to protecting wildlife in West Sussex and beyond. They claim the grounds were a valuable ecological site which should have been treated with more respect: “It was not an overgrown garden, but a wild woodland habitat that would have been rich in reptiles, bats and other protected species of birds and hedgehogs,” Mr Wild said.

Arun District Council said the clearance notice was only served after the empty homes officer attempted to work with the property owner for a number of years to bring the site back into use. They added the notice was served due to a concern that the garden would attract vermin. #

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