Southbourne Crossroads: claims rare newt discovered on site

Several residents have claimed that great crested newts (GCN) have been found in the community garden pond on the site where Vivir Estates LTD is set to build four blocks of flats.

The site at Southbourne Crossroads carpark has been given the green light to build 27 apartments. The developer says he will start construction in a few weeks despite the reported environmental controversy.

A spokesperson for the Southbourne Crossroads action group, Nadia McGary, said: “Great crested newts are a protected species, so it’s a criminal offence to deliberately kill, injure or capture them and their eggs.

“It is also illegal to damage or destroy their breeding sites and resting places.

“Unfortunately, the community pond was not picked up in the developer’s ecology report, therefore the endangered species appears to have been missed.

“It does pose the question, at what else has been missed?”

Edward Fitzsimmons, the director of Vivir Estates LTD, maintained that there has been no confirmation that this species of newts has been found at the site, saying ‘it’s likely they had been planted there.’

He said: “The presence of GCN in the water has not been confirmed. We received a spurious e-mail from an anonymous individual who forwarded some pictures of a pond; the pictures do not have any GPS Data or a time or date; the pictures could be of any location taken at any time in the past. 

"As we take our ecological responsibility very seriously, we instructed an Ecological consultant to inspect the water feature; the feedback from the consultant is as follows.

“We also reached out to Dorset Environmental records who confirmed that there were no reports within 5km of the car park.”

Edward added: “I can only conclude that if indeed GCN are present they have recently been put there by persons unknown.

In response, Nadia said: “Despite him not believing, they are there and he needs to be careful.”