Field record · Preliminary Ecological Appraisal

The wildlife was surveyed before it was written off.

Before a stadium could be drawn on the Embankment, the developers had to send ecologists to find out what lives here. Their own survey recorded badgers, bats, woodland and hedgerows on a strip of the River Nene wildlife corridor, 170 metres from one of the most important wetlands in Britain. This is what that survey found, and why it should stop the bulldozers.

What their own ecologists recorded

Four findings from the developers' survey

Every line below comes from the Embankment Masterplan Feasibility Study of January 2021 and its ecological appraisal. This is not the campaign's evidence. It is the developers' own.

Record 01 · Mammals Protected by law

Badgers

Six active setts on site.

The appraisal recorded six active and two disused badger setts, and judged it highly likely that badgers use the site for foraging, commuting and residence.

Protection of Badgers Act 1992. It is a criminal offence to damage, destroy or obstruct a sett, or to disturb a badger while it occupies one. Natural England's badger advice is a material planning consideration the council must weigh.
Record 02 · Mammals Protected by law

Bats

A commuting and foraging route.

The woodland, scrub and hedgerow on site, together with the River Nene along the southern edge, were assessed as being of value to bats for commuting and foraging.

Habitats Regulations 2017 and Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. All British bats are European Protected Species. Their roosts are protected whether or not bats are present at the time.
Record 03 · Habitat

Semi-natural woodland

Rated of elevated ecological value.

The broadleaved woodland was singled out as having elevated ecological value relative to everything else on the site. The appraisal said it should be retained, protected and enhanced.

Local Plan Policy LP29. Development should be prepared on the overriding principle that existing tree and woodland cover is maintained, improved and expanded.
Record 04 · Habitat

Hedgerows and grassland

The connective tissue of the site.

Native boundary hedgerows, some carrying mature trees, thread through swathes of grassland. Of the roughly 70 acres, around 25 acres are trees and buffer. These are the links animals actually move along.

Around 25 acres of trees and buffer. Hedgerows and treelines are the corridors that let an urban wildlife network function rather than fall into isolated fragments.
The neighbour next door

170 metres from an internationally protected wetland

The Embankment sits about 170 metres from the Nene Washes, and the two do not stay separate. Birds and bats move between them.

Designation

The highest tier of protection

The Nene Washes, roughly 1,500 hectares along the river, hold almost every protection British and international law can give a wetland: a Site of Special Scientific Interest, a Ramsar internationally important wetland, a Special Area of Conservation and a Special Protection Area for birds.

The developers' own study accepts that Natural England will need to be consulted on anything built here.

What it holds

Cranes, godwits and swans

The Washes are the most important site in the UK for breeding black-tailed godwit, one of Britain's very few breeding colonies of common crane, and a wintering ground for internationally important numbers of Bewick's swans.

Snipe, marsh harriers, hen harriers and short-eared owls all use the same river corridor the Embankment forms part of.

Why the strip matters more than the acreage

The Embankment is a link in a chain

Habitat loss and fragmentation are among the leading drivers of wildlife decline. A wildlife corridor is a continuous strip of habitat that lets animals move, feed, breed and shift range as the climate changes. Rivers are the classic example, and the wider and less broken the corridor, the better it works.

The River Nene is that corridor here, and its northern bank is part of it: woodland, hedgerows and grassland running unbroken beside the water, linking the parkland in the west to the internationally protected wetlands in the east. Wildlife travels this line because it is continuous.

Drop a stadium, its car parks and a 23-metre roofline into the middle of that strip and the loss is not only the ground it covers. Light, noise and hard surfacing push wildlife back from the river and put a hard edge through a living connection. On a corridor, width and continuity are precisely what count.

The developers' own figure is a loss of roughly 6 to 8 acres of the open space. On a wildlife corridor, a break in the middle costs far more than the acres it occupies.
The council's own rulebook

The stadium is being pushed through the policies written to stop it

These are Peterborough's own adopted Local Plan policies, the same document the feasibility study is measured against.

LP28

Biodiversity and geological conservation

The council will promote a functioning ecological network of core sites, buffers, wildlife corridors and stepping stones, and development should deliver a net gain in biodiversity. A stadium severing the Nene corridor does the opposite.

LP24

Nene Valley

Development should protect and enhance biodiversity and link surrounding habitats, and development that would increase flood risk will not be permitted. The Embankment sits squarely inside this policy area.

LP29

Trees and woodland

Existing tree and woodland cover should be maintained, improved and expanded. The site's woodland was rated of elevated ecological value by the developers' own ecologists.

The line that cannot be un-crossed

Enhance it. Don't end it.

This campaign is not against change on the Embankment. Sensitive improvement that opens the space up for people and for wildlife is welcome. What cannot be undone is dropping a stadium seating close to 20,000 onto a protected-species habitat, on a river corridor, beside an internationally important wetland. Once the setts are gone and the woodland is felled, no mitigation planting brings the corridor back.

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Sources and evidence

Survey findings, habitat descriptions and the loss of roughly 6 to 8 acres of open space are taken from the Peterborough Embankment Masterplan Feasibility Study, January 2021 (WSP), including its Preliminary Ecological Appraisal and the Local Plan policy extracts reproduced in its appendices. Nene Washes designations and species are recorded by the RSPB, Natural England and the Ramsar Sites Information Service. Species protections are set out in the Protection of Badgers Act 1992, the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017. The role of wildlife corridors in reducing habitat fragmentation is drawn from published conservation science.