Urgent Action Needed to Protect Community Woodland On Hayling Island

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Stoke Common Hayling Island is in need of urgent protection. The area will possibly be sold to housing developers causing havoc for local wildlife.

Stoke Common on Hayling Island is going to be auctioned on the 22nd April 2010. The auctioneer has listed it as suitable for development sparking fears locally that the woodland will be destroyed. The area is the last remaining piece of publicly accessible woodland on the Island and is a unusual habitat for wildlife. A campaign was launched by local residents within hours of the auctions announcement. The aim to raise enough money to buy the woodland at the auction. It will then be managed by a charitable woodland trust.

Campaign organizers have appealed to the community to send in any donations so that they will be able to purchase the land at the upcoming auction. Donations can be made at http://stokecommon.org/. Time restraints have put limits on the amount of government and charitable funding that will be received, which is why public and business donations are being sought so urgently. Various grants have been applied for but they are unlikely to be successful before the auction date.

Stoke Common is situated at the north end of Hayling Island between the Havant Road and the Hayling Billy Costal path. The ten acre plot is a habitat for a variety of wildlife. The wooded area regularly floods creating marsh and bog land, creating a rare mix of habitats. The woodland is home at times to the Honey Buzzard, a protected species. The RSPB estimate that there are only 33-69 breeding pairs every year in the whole of the U.K.. The destruction of the Stoke Common woodland would also displace a large number of other birds and animals including Roe deer, bats, dormice, adders, newts and slow worms.

Campaigners fear that destruction of the woodland for development would increase traffic on the already stretched Havant Road and it would increase pollution by removing one of the natural lungs of the Island. They also claim that this housing development will degrade the natural ambiance of the island which is likely to threaten many local businesses that benefit from tourism.

More information on the campaign to save Stoke Common woodland can be found at http://stokecommon.org/