Damage to Bluebell Hill Roadside Nature Reserve

Many reports in the press have directly linked the destruction of this habitat with works being undertaken for Brexit. Whilst it is true that the works were delivered as part of Operation Brock and the planning for a No-Deal Brexit, the focus on this has drawn attention away from the real, critical issue.

Much of the conversation surrounding this sad episode detracts from the seriousness of the devastation that is occurring to wildlife and natural spaces, in Maidstone, in Kent in the UK and globally at an alarming rate. The bigger question we should all be asking ourselves is why wildlife is in the situation where damage to a single, half-mile stretch of road verge can lead to such a loss of important species – species which to all measures should be abundant.

This incident belies a much bigger issue in our environments; we cannot continue to push our wildlife to the edges of the space we live in. Roadside Nature Reserves, like Local Wildlife Sites, are sites designated for their value to wildlife but with no statutory protection which means we all too often have to focus on putting things right after they have gone wrong.

Road verges are essential wildlife corridors through our fragmented landscapes but we need to make more space for nature as Kent Wildlife Trust campaigns for a Wilder Future and Wilder Kent. This is not how things should be and this is exactly what our Wilder Kent plan aims to address.