THANK YOU TO EVERYONE FOR YOUR CONTINUED SUPPORT. Without you we cannot keep up our campaign fight.

We have now launched a petition calling for Canterbury County Council to protect and enhance the Blean landscape and woodland complex as a vital hub of biodiversity, heritage, agriculture, and community well-being for the benefit of future generations.

We hope that by linking the Save The Blean, Brooklands Farm and Dunkirk/Winterbourne Fields campaigns we can get the Council to listen. We will be submitting the completed petition to the Council (and the University of Kent) early in the new year.

Sign the petition online here or sign a physical copy during November and December in your local Parish Hall – Tyler Hill, Blean or Rough Common. Details can also be found on the STB Facebook page.

Why we’ve launched this petition
Blean woods is one of the largest and most distinctive areas of ancient woodland in
the UK. It is the site of the world-leading Wilder Blean rewilding project, which has
successfully reintroduced European Bison to the woods along with Longhorn Cattle,
Exmoor Ponies and Iron-Age Pigs. It also has multiple nationally and internationally
recognised areas of importance, including Sites of Special Scientific Interest and
Special Areas of Conservation. 

Blean woods are a hotspot for the rare and iconic heath fritillary butterfly, and Red-list
woodland birds including lesser-spotted woodpeckers, nightingales and spotted
flycatchers. Several invertebrate species thought extinct in the UK have also been
recently recorded.  With only 2.5% of the UK covered by ancient woodland,
protecting every hectare is vital.   

But as with many of the UK’s natural areas, the Blean has been fragmented by
farming and unsustainable development. This has resulted in isolated pockets of
woodland, limiting the movement of wildlife and important conservation grazing
animals, and restricting public access across the Blean. 

Now the Blean Woodland Complex is under further threat from at least three large-
scale housing developments (totalling almost 5,000 houses), with all the associated
traffic, air pollution, light pollution, predation by pets and damage to the woodlands
themselves. Please sign our petition to stop these vast and unsustainable
developments, and protect these ancient woodlands for the benefit of the whole
district.

Stay informed
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website. We’ll keep you updated with all the latest on the campaign.