Archived press release

Giant white horse rides roughshod over wildlife policy

28 March 2002

Government allows giant hill-carving to damage SSSI

Friends of the Earth today slammed the Government's decision to give the go-ahead to a white horse hill-carving at one of the UK's top wildlife sites near Folkestone, Kent, and urged English Nature, who as the Government's advisors have opposed the project, to take legal action to prevent it going ahead.

The announcement follows a Public Inquiry into plans by Shepway District Council to create a giant, 100-metre, white horse on a grassy chalk hill overlooking the entrance to the Channel Tunnel [1]. English Nature opposed the plan because the site, the Folkestone to Etchinghill Escarpment Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), is of national importance for its outstanding chalk grassland plants and insects [2]. The site has also been proposed as a Special Area of Conservation (SAC), because of its importance as a European wildlife site.

Friends of the Earth has today written to the European Commission as it believes the proposal is in breach of the EU Habitats Directive.

Craig Bennett, habitats campaigner at Friends of the Earth said:
“This decision by the Government is unbelievable. Stephen Byers has rejected the advice of the Government's own wildlife experts and given the go-ahead to a project that will damage one of the most sensitive habitats in the country.

If this is the Government's attitude, none of our precious wildlife sites are safe. The white horse could prove to be a Trojan horse, setting a precedent which allows our very best wildlife sites to be replaced by roads, ports and airports. We call on English Nature, as champions of wildlife, to do everything it can to stop this destructive beast going ahead.”

Notes

[1] Supporters of the White Horse claim that it will boost civic pride and help re-generate the area.

[2] Chalk grassland is a rare and vulnerable habitat in Europe. Folkestone to Etchinghill Escarpment SSSI,represents one of the few remaining fragments of a once much larger tract of chalk grassland across the North Downs. The site proposed for the white horse is of national importance for its outstanding chalk grassland plants and insects, including such typical chalk grassland plants as rockrose, horseshoe vetch,salad burnett and ladies bedstraw. The chalk grassland supports an outstanding butterfly fauna including the nationally scarce adonis blue and chalkhill blue butterflies. It is of European importance on account of its orchid populations including the nationally protected late and early spider orchids [English Nature press release, 31 July 1998, Millennium Threat to Important Wildlife Site.]

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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust