Plan to Protect Ashridge

Aldbury_Nowers. One of the entrances to the National Trust Estate of Ashridge_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1347768

Dacorum Borough Council has published a Mitigation Strategy, which includes cash injections from homes developers, and plans to make other green spaces more attractive to visitors, in a bid to help to protect Ashridge Commons and Woods.

Following an ecology report last spring, which showed that special features of the Chilterns Beechwoods SAC (Special Area of Conservation) at Ashridge Commons and Woods SSSI (Sites of Special Scientific Interest) were being harmed, planning permission for residential development near the site has been on hold.

The new Mitigation Strategy sets out targeted measures to protect the site and to accommodate the predicted pressures associated with future growth within the 12.6-kilometre Zone of Influence that extends from Ashridge Commons and Woods.

These Strategic Access Management and Monitoring (SAMMS) measures will cost a total of £18.2million. This cost will be shared across all of the affected local authorities, and in Dacorum, developers will be required to pay a tariff of £913.88 for each new home built.

All new developments within the Zone of Influence will need to make provision for a new Suitable Alternative Natural Greenspace (SANG), or alternatively contribute towards the maintenance of a suitable SANG project elsewhere.

All new homes granted planning permission from 14 March 2022, will need to contribute.

The National Trust has launched ‘Protecting Our Roots’, a strategic project dedicated to safeguarding the future of Ashridge Estate.

Its website states: ‘The volume of feet, tyres, paws and hooves on the same ground is causing the ancient soil and the special biodiversity within it to become worn away.

‘We need to make changes to the infrastructure across the estate. This is likely to include new visitor hubs, new car parking arrangements on Monument Drive, surfacing some of the most well-used paths and resting other areas to allow them to recover.’

Learn more at: www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/essex-bedfordshire-hertfordshire/ashridge-estate/protecting-the-future-of-ashridge-estate.