Despite calling HS2 “an act of ecocide” on the grounds that building it would “bulldoze huge areas of natural woodland and cut wildlife habitats”, the Green-led Brighton and Hove City Council have nonetheless bulldozed a huge area of natural woodland and cut a wildlife habitat this week, by partially removing Europe’s longest and oldest green wall to make room for a “possible” cycle lane on the road. Built in the 1870s “to improve the seafront environment”, the wall was home to over 100 species of plant and a designated local wildlife site…

BuildingGreen, the firm responsible for maintaining the wall alongside the Council, said it was “shocked” at what happened, and that it was the result of a “miscommunication“. All this for a “possible” cycle lane. At least HS2 is actually being built…

UPDATE: Brighton & Hove City Council have issued a statement denying councillors had any knowledge of the deforestation:

We’d like to apologise to our residents for the way we went about cutting back the stretch of Green Wall at the bottom of Duke’s Mound in March.

It should not have been cut down in this way. We are very sorry about this, and an investigation is underway to find out how this happened.

As part of the Black Rock regeneration project a road safety audit was carried out. This found that the greenery limited visibility and may result in collisions between vehicles and pedestrians. The cutting back of the greenery was not raised with councillors. It was arranged by council staff as an operational requirement, stemming from the road safety audit.

Hat-tip: Jody Doherty-Cove