Our position
Essex Wildlife Trust remains fundamentally opposed to the proposals for the redevelopment of Middlewick Ranges for housing.
Reason for this updated statement
This expanded and updated statement about Middlewick Ranges Local Wildlife Site (Co122) is in response to the Colchester City Council’s current Local Plan Review and, also, additional information on the sites’ wildlife importance.
This statement is made on behalf of both the Essex Wildlife Trust and its subsidiary, commercial ecological consultancy arm, Essex Ecology (formerly known as EECOS). Essex Ecology has surveyed all the City Council’s Local Wildlife Sites, several times, over the last 30 years and has provided ecological advice to Colchester City Council on their protection.
In spite of its special status for wildlife, recognised by its designation as a Local Wildlife Site in the Local Plan, and its importance to local people as a highly valued green space, Middlewick Ranges, perversely, remains threatened with destruction under the same Local Plan. This threat is in the form of a proposed housing allocation of 1,000 houses, which would destroy the site.
The importance of the site
Middlewick Ranges is an outstandingly significant site for biodiversity, not only for Colchester, but for Essex and the wider SE region. At 76 hectares it is one of Colchester City’s largest Local Wildlife Sites and, on its own, represents nearly 4% of the Council’s complete Local Wildlife Site acreage.
Furthermore, with tens of hectares of rare acid grassland, Middlewick Ranges encompass the largest extent of this special habitat in north Essex, and the habitat is of the same ecological importance as acid grasslands of fully protected Sites of Special Scientific Interest, like Epping Forest SSSI.
Acid grassland is a type of natural dry grassland that grows on low fertility, sandy and gravelly soils, similar to lowland heath. In these exacting conditions, uncommon grasses and wildflowers thrive and a very unusual and special insect fauna develops. On Middlewick Ranges, the grassland and its underlying carbon-rich soils have been undisturbed for at least two centuries and were also part of an even more extensive grass-heath environment to the south of Colchester. This has allowed high levels of biodiversity to flourish.
New information since the Local Plan Examination of 2021
In relation to this biodiversity, the Government’s statutory adviser on nature conservation, Natural England, wrote to the Council in June 2022 and expressed its opinion that that the significance of this special habitat was likely to have been underestimated during the examination of the Local Plan in 2021. However, of real and additional concern to Essex Wildlife Trust is that the site’s insect biodiversity was not properly addressed during the Local Plan preparation. Essex Ecology advised the Council’s officers in early 2021 that the site, with more survey work, was likely to reach a level to be considered of SSSI-level quality.
Since then, Colchester Natural History Society, together with Essex Field Club and Butterfly Conservation, have conducted further field surveys and their additional species lists were submitted to the Council in June 2022. This detailed survey work added to the already impressive list of rare species and discovered at least 23 Red Data Book Species, the rarest of the rare. The surveys also found a quarter of all Essex's known moth and butterfly species within the site’s 76 hectares.
Protection and mitigation
In Essex Wildlife Trust's opinion, therefore, Middlewick Ranges is almost certainly now of national importance for insect biodiversity. Natural England, in its June 2022 letter (referred to above), stated that it would expect the Council to safeguard this exceptional biodiversity, for which the Council is responsible.
The mitigation for the destruction of this site, which was proposed at the Local Plan examination in 2021, was completely flawed and would in no way safeguard the Ranges’ biodiversity. The proposed mitigation did not take account the richness of the insect fauna nor the undisturbed, carbon-rich soils and, furthermore, proposed the ploughing up and destruction of old grasslands to the south of the Ranges.
For our part, the Trust would go further and add that safeguarding the green space for current and future generations of local people, and visitors from farther afield, is also of paramount importance for future well-being. Such a wildlife-rich, accessible, and large open space allows encounters and engagement with the full diversity of nature, where wildlife and human history combine to make it unique and irreplaceable.
Action required
It is clear that Colchester City Council's starting point and immediate focus for its current Local Plan Review is the enhancement of Colchester's green network. Essex Wildlife Trust warmly welcomes this strong commitment to "creating a better environment". With this clear direction, the Trust calls on Colchester City Council, with its strengthened duties to enhance biodiversity under the Environment Act 2021, to permanently safeguard Middlewick Ranges Local Wildlife Site.
In the face of the climate emergency and the UK's deepening biodiversity crisis, Essex Wildlife Trust believes that the full, long-term protection of Middlewick Ranges, and their management for wildlife and people, is essential.