ADD UPDATE, 30 July 2018: One of our key supporters – an expert angler – has produced a great video showing the threat to the River Itchen from sediment run-off. The area he visited is a development of 60 houses in Bishopstoke, the Chase, and his video gives a very clear idea of what might happen if plans for 1,000 extra houses adjacent to the Chase, and 4,300 other houses north of Fair Oak (Eastleigh council’s so-called ‘options B and C’ of its Local Plan), were allowed to go ahead.
The potential irreparable damage to ‘probably the most iconic chalk stream in the world’, as it was described in a World Wildlife fund report, must not be allowed to happen – and we continue to do everything we can to stop it.
As our supporter says at the end of his video: “It is very difficult on a site like this to build 1,000 houses on a slope that goes down to the River Itchen without risk and I would argue that this development should be knocked on the head. There are other sites after all – flat sites – which may be equally close to the River Itchen but they are unlikely to be as damaging.”
See the video below:
