Thursday 14th November 2024
kingspondpreservationsociety@gmail.com
A Statement on Behalf of Members of the Kings Pond Preservation Society
Members of the Kings Pond Preservation Society would like to issue a formal response to Alton Town Council’s position on Kings Pond and in particular, comments made by Councillor Don Hammond. At the full town council meeting of Wednesday 6th November 2024, Councillor Hammond stated supporters of Kings Pond need a “reset”. The society consider this remark disingenuous and an unfair assault on
members of the public which does not represent proceedings of the last eighteen months.
Whilst the society opposes radical alteration to Kings Pond, a decision was made to refrain from active campaigning to give the new council time and space to carry out investigative work and to deliver on their duty to democratically represent the people of our town. As a group we have honoured our commitment yet remain subject to the same disparaging behaviour alongside wider supporters of the Kings Pond cause.
At the most recent meeting, the council have committed to spending a further £15,000 for undisclosed reports at Kings Pond. We believe that this is an irresponsible use of public money, especially given the refusal to engage with public feeling and opinions prior to voting on this expense. We are now in a position where Alton Town Council will have spent up to £40,000 without any meaningful public engagement. The society believes forthcoming sessions on Kings Pond are not an appropriate form of public engagement. Council publications imply just one councillor will be present, and the term “briefing” infers the public will be spoken at, rather than engaged with.
Notwithstanding concerns surrounding the conduct of councillors and procedural abnormalities, we believe that engaging with public feelings and concerns should have occurred prior to the release of any proposals and without any undue bias or influence. We are particularly mindful that at this time, no undertaking has been sought by the council to understand the potential impact of works on wildlife. As this was a major concern when the plans were first presented, we consider it reckless to seek public influence through these sessions without first having all the relevant information.
Whilst as residents it is a space which we enjoy, for wildlife, it is there home and we believe that destruction of habitat, especially given urban expansion is irresponsible. Having reviewed the plans with a society member with substantial professional experience in wildlife conservation and considered various other influences, we remain of the view that the harm inflicted by proposals to separate the pond and river outweigh perceived benefits.
As a group we have tried to engage with Alton Town Council. Our introductory letter which was hand delivered to town hall has not been responded to and our request to be afforded an equal footing with Friends of Flood Meadows with similar terms of reference has also been ignored. As a group we continue to be maligned but are undeterred. We therefore call on members of the public to unite with us to democratically oppose any separation of the river and pond. As a society we welcome new members and supporters and can be contacted at any time on the email address at the head of this statement.
Thursday 31st October 2024
The Wey forward? Paper released as D-Day in sight for Kings Pond.
A decision on the future of a beauty spot in Alton is getting closer. A briefing paper called King’s Pond: The Next Steps in Deciding the Way Forward has been released by Alton Town Council ahead of their meeting next Wednesday. And it ultimately comes down to two options: dredge and keep the pond in its current form, or remove the weir and restore the natural flow of the Wey.
Both proposals have pros and cons as the former is low-risk and would not change the pond’s biodiversity, while improvements to the weir could reduce blockages, but the option is not sustainable.
The other is a sustainable “pond and river” alternative vision which restores the natural flow of the Wey and minimises silting.
But the reduction in water – with wetlands, two ponds and a stream likely to form – could lead to a drop in wildfowl.
Expenditure for forthcoming ecological surveys will be on the agenda at next Wednesday’s meeting, more at www.alton.gov.uk/kings-pond-update
Thursday 29th August 2024
Calls for more action as Herculean effort to clean up Alton pond is heralded
A town councillor has highlighted a man’s bid to “avert disaster” at a beauty spot amid concerns the “Jewel in Alton’s crown” is being neglected.
Anthony Furnival has singled-handedly spent much of August tackling the chronic algae bloom which has frequently blocked the weir, raised water levels and caused flooding at King’s Pond. The oxygen-depleting “pond weed” which can suffocate fish and aquatic life and threaten its delicate eco-system first appeared on the pond around mid-July. Algae growth is natural but increases when phosphates and nitrates, often agricultural run-off, combined with bright sunlight. Phenomenal quantities of algae have been disposed by the town council’s grounds team thanks to Mr Furnival’s herculean efforts with grateful residents also expressing their thanks to the selfless volunteer.
But he and Cllr Matthew Kellermann feel the work is only treating the symptom, and not providing a cure, as methods to mitigate the likelihood of algal overgrowth have not been put in place and are being overlooked.
Cllr Kellermann said: “There is widespread public concern that King’s Pond is being allowed to deteriorate in order to justify radical changes to the area. “Frequently, Altonians compare – unfavourably – the state of the pond to that of Flood Meadows, an area that attracts much investment and attention.”
The councillor added: “If residents and visitors feel that this public asset is worth saving and improving, it would be advisable that they make their voices heard and appropriately petition elected officials before it is too late for King’s Pond.”
Monday 14th August 2023
Saving Kings Pond: Alton's environmental jewel under siege once again.
Alton and the surrounding area is blessed to have the Kings Pond near the centre of town. It is priceless in its beauty and great variety of wildlife. One could imagine other similar towns with nothing like Kings Pond wanting to spend large sums of money to create a pond which would attract such a variety of wildlife and have a joyful circular walk around it, which is used daily by the very young to the very old.
It is a place of peace, regeneration and calm for those in need of such things.
Alton has its own nature reserve which people come from miles around to visit. Other places would probably charge to visit such a place! From little grebes to swans and their cygnets every year, from little egrets and herons to large numbers of cormorants, the Kings Pond is a very special place.
The previous Alton Town Council produced a management plan which proposed taking Kings Pond “offline”, which is hydrology jargon for getting rid of it. This caused great concern among many people who love the pond and enjoy its beauty and wildlife. It was controversial and caused a great deal of angst. Why did they want to do this?
Their thinking appeared to be based on a letter from the Environment Agency (Paul Davey, technical officer, July 20, 2022) which expressed the view they had long had the ambition to take Kings Pond offline – because such a move would help to tackle the “biodiversity and climate crisis and restore lost ecosystems”. So Paul Davey takes the view that by decimating the wildlife at Kings Pond we enhance it, and by getting rid of Alton’s greatest natural asset we are helping to address climate change.
So a minor technical officer at the EA has these odd ideas, Alton Town Council take his views as gospel and want to take Kings Pond offline and create an ugly mess with virtually no wildlife, nor even any river most summers when it dries up. No large pond and virtually all the wildlife goes elsewhere and who knows how many thousands of fish would die.
The majority of the previous councillors retired and a new council came along in May, making promises which were on the front page of the local paper that they were going to preserve Kings Pond. Now they too have gone the way of the previous council and published much the same management plan as the previous council stating it is recommended that the management plan for the site gives strong consideration to the removal of the pond in its current form and re-profiling the river to greatly improve the ecological benefits.
They quote the same nonsensical letter from Paul Davey of the Environment Agency, which is clearly simplistic in the extreme and full of empty assertions about biodiversity and addressing climate change.
So again we have a tiny number of people threatening the greatest act of environmental vandalism that could be inflicted on Alton in its history, by taking away Kings Pond and again this is causing a great deal of anxiety among all the people who love and care about it.
What makes this even more astonishing is they are doing it for such spurious and juvenile reasons, all of which are in Paul Davey’s letter.
Friday 24th February 2023
Petition to save Kings Pond in Alton reaches 1,000 signatures.
A petition calling for Alton Town Council to abandon proposals which seek to take Kings Pond offline from the River Wey has just passed a significant milestone – the number of signatures, predominantly from the Alton area, now stands at just over 1,000.
On the back of a council meeting last month which was attended by in excess of 120 local residents, combined with another 300-name petition collected by Sandra Hardman, there is a clear picture of public opinion forming.
Many people love and cherish Kings Pond in its current form and have no desire to see the proposed changes enacted. Despite this, and an assertion that it was “not a done deal”, councillors voted in favour of earmarking funds for a feasibility study and appointment of a project manager, choosing to take the marginal result of a public consultation as a mandate to act over a majority opposition expressed through other mediums.
While many will see no cause for concern, there are grounds to worry.
By definition, a feasibility study is a document examining whether a concept can realistically be implemented – it is groundwork for achieving a desired outcome, not one of neutrality. Critically, it comes at a cost and may put the town in a position where the mounting expenses become the catalyst to see the project through. A point I made at the public meeting is we are not yet at a stage where a feasibility study should even be considered. The council has yet to investigate or seek to mitigate the ingress of silt and other pollutants into the river between its source and the pond.
I submitted evidence to Cllr Graham Hill which showed how, during downpours, soil was washed in a torrent down Brick Kiln Lane into the waterway – something which is likely a significant contributor to the silt build-up at Kings Pond. Further documentation shows how authorities in Norfolk, when faced with similar issues, worked with local landowners to successfully address this. I sincerely believe the next steps need to be ones of fact finding and problem solving – it might be a slow process but finding long-term fixes for how silt and pollutants enter the waterway in the first instance is the only true resolution.
There is no miracle cure nor a single solution – rather it is a giant jigsaw puzzle which we must tackle one piece at a time.
While a more drawn-out process, it has greater long-term prospects and represents less of a gamble than the proposals to take the pond offline which, as Cllr Hill noted, has no guarantee of success, as evidenced in similar projects elsewhere. The future of the space has also been dealt a further blow. The dissolution of the open spaces committee now means Alton’s parks and public spaces, such as Kings Pond, are deprived of a quarterly meeting solely and exclusively dedicated to them. While it should be noted the number of full council meetings will be increased from six to ten per annum, it does mean proposals, discussion and debate face being lost among a wider agenda, with less time dedicated to such issues.
With big-ticket items such as the Kings Pond proposals, the pump track and Flood Meadows enhancements being born out of such meetings, it feels like the council is making a significant step backwards with these plans. And in being implemented with immediate effect, there is no option for the next council, post-May, to have its say on this decision. With the above in mind, the petition launched calls for a complete abandonment of the proposals to date.
Without wishing to villainise the council, it made mistakes and neglected to represent the views of the electorate, which became evident in how local people expressed themselves at the public meeting, on social media and through letters to the Herald. In asking the council to take things back to the drawing board, it’s not a criticism but an opportunity. It instead allows for a holistic and inclusive approach to addressing environmental needs of the pond and wider waterway while working towards an end project which townsfolk will want to support.
Speaking as a resident, county councillor Andrew Joy referred to Kings Pond as being the jewel in the crown for Alton – and that is exactly what many of the petition’s signatories wish to see – a return to its former glory as the wildlife-rich, beating heart of our town.
With local elections less than three months away, it is essential that those who stand seek to represent public feeling. There is a genuine prospect that some votes will be won or lost depending on how a candidate positions themselves on the Kings Pond debate.
I read out a letter from a local resident at the meeting whose sentiment was to the effect of “Kings Pond has always been there at our times of need, now we must be there when it needs us most”.
Never were more true words spoken.
Wednesday 18th January 2023
Anthony Furnival: We must look at alternatives for Kings Pond in Alton.
The future of Kings Pond in Alton will be debated during an Alton Town Council meeting in the Alton Maltings Centre tonight at 7pm. In this article, Anthony Furnival – one of six people who have submitted written representations to be considered at the meeting – gives his view on what should happen next.
With the code of conduct and guidelines for local government clear that councils must represent the best interests of the area and views of local people, this petition is far from fruitless. There is no rule stating that such views shall only be considered if part of a consultation – as such those opposing the changes are encouraged to sign so as voices are heard.
With only a small majority and inadequate controls in place on the Survey Monkey platform to prevent multiple entries or to ensure the integrity of the process to act as a de facto referendum on the pond's future, the results are insufficient to act as a mandate to act – especially where many feel that this is not the right way forward. There is also no clear evidence that a majority exists in favour of change, given that the council are in possession of a 300-name petition gathered by another local resident which on its own outnumbers those supporting the proposals.
There are simply too many issues and variables at this stage to progress with any plans. Campaigners are therefore calling on the council to abandon the Aquamaintain proposals and instead take a step back to fully assess issues in an unbiased manner and consider a wider array of solutions which can then be discussed with resident groups so as we can find something which works for everyone.
A solid management plan needs to be the foundation stone for the future of the pond. The proposals produced were the cheapest option available and written by a company with insufficient qualifications, local knowledge or experience to complete the work to the required standard. While this has come at a cost, we simply need to accept that it was an expensive mistake, but nothing on the scale of what is to come if the council persist with their desire to force through these changes.
The proposals as they stand do not address the cause of the problems. Pictures and an article from a rivers specialist show dirt and debris washing down Brick Kiln Lane straight into the River Wey - thus contributing towards the silt build-up in Kings Pond. It also notes dishwashers connected to the wrong drains flowing into the river. Taking the pond offline doesn’t resolve these issues - we should be first working at source to address the ingress of pollutants and nutrients into the water before it reaches the pond.
As Cllr Paula Langley highlighted in her BBC interview, questions about the impact to wildlife simply haven’t been answered. These do not fall for a feasibility study to ascertain - this is information which should have been provided in the first instance as part of the management plan or as a precursor to it. Dredging is highly invasive and disruptive for wildlife but the proposals will be just as problematic, if not more given the drastic alteration which is also being made to the wider habitat and food chain.
There is also evidence from CALA, the developer on the old Molson Coors brewery grounds, suggesting that a silt trap was to be included on site which would then limit the amount of silt reaching the pond. It is unclear what the current status of these proposals are, however this was an option which was neither explored in the proposals or offered in the consultation, yet could be hugely beneficial for water quality in the River Wey by significantly reducing silt build-up at Kings Pond.
Furthermore the need for such drastic works simply hasn’t been proven. While the council suggest the water quality is very poor, this has not been sufficiently evidenced. In fact, an AVLAN-led group reported on social media “masses of freshwater shrimp” among other finds at the Lamports - where the river leaves the pond - suggesting the water quality isn’t that poor.
It goes without saying that the pond and river can and should benefit from some works to further improve the habitat. However the argument being made is that the changes need not be as drastic as those proposed nor necessitate the destruction of the pond. Moderate alternatives addressing ingress at source, repairing banks, the use of a silt trap and planting to aid filtration of the water are among small, achievable and much more cost-effective options for water health which were not consulted on.
Those who wish to save the pond are urged to sign the petition by visiting www.savekingspond.co.uk, which will direct you to the change.org survey which is in place. Please consider sharing this with others who you believe may also feel the same way.