Rother Environmental Group members turned out in strength for their AGM held at the St Mary’s Centre on Tuesday evening, January 28.
In addition to the usual AGM business was a talk by Nigel Jennings on the re-wilding of Knepp Castle, a 3,500 acre estate south of Horsham, Sussex. An outing for members is planned to visit Knepp Castle later in the year.
Dominic Manning, chair, gave the same talk presented at the very first meeting of Rother District Council’s (RDC) climate change steering group meeting in November, following the council’s declaration of a climate emergency in September.
The group seeks to support the council in this most difficult and pressing task and calls upon individuals, businesses and communities to engage productively in realising drastic reductions in carbon emissions over the next ten years. The latest actions proposed by RDC can be found here
Sue Burton then spoke about the scope for action groups in the face of climate change.
The talks were followed by a lively discussion, devoted in part to the impending threat to the tree belt behind Rye station consequent upon the planning consent granted for housing development on the former Lower School site.
General indignation was aroused by the failure of the planning authority to respect conservation advice regarding this important wildlife area, particularly for the breeding habitat of the endangered species of turtle dove – see the petition here. At the time of the AGM, there were already 7,500 signatories.
Image Credits: Rye News library .