Councillor Alasdair Keddie (Queen’s Park & Charminster) says: “The low water levels in Queen’s Park pond this year have been a big concern, I would like to assure everyone that a huge amount of effort has been going on behind the scenes to try and address this. There is a full programme of works now booked in for this winter to preserve the long term future of the pond.
“Last winter BCP Council took about 40 tonnes of mud and silt out, with the idea that with a wet winter, it would have filled the pond and increased its resilience. However, we’ve actually had such an aggressive dry spell that the loss of water has got much worse.
“All wildlife is migrating. It’s a really sad, sorry state of affairs.
“I have been working with the BCP Council Ecology Team, as well as reaching out to the water companies, the Parks Foundation and others, to see what can be done.
“Regarding the wildlife pond, a lot of effort has been going on behind the scenes to get this resolved. I have had regular meetings with the management at Queen’s Park Golf Course, and we have been following every possible option to address this.
“We have been in contact with:
- Southwest Water
- Wessex Water
- Bournemouth Water
- The Environment Agency
- The Parks Foundation
- The Greenspace Team
- The Senior BCP Ecology Officer
and a host of other professionals and organisations.
“I will try to give my impression from speaking to a range of experts on this:
“The consensus is that the water loss is consistent with evaporation of 2-3cm of water per week. Given the surface area of the pond being ~2,500 square metres, that’s between 50,000L and 75,000L a week being lost.
No breach of the pond’s clay lining, say experts
“I have asked the question that has been raised by local residents about a potential breach of the clay lining, and this has been ruled out for a few reasons:
- Firstly, the rate of water loss from a breach would be much faster, especially in combination with the weather conditions.
- Secondly, the only areas of the pond that are actually retaining water are those that were dredged, which increased the holding capacity. If that work hadn’t been carried out, there would be no water left at all.
- Thirdly, the senior ecologist is adamant that the rate of water loss is consistent with evaporation from a long, dry, sunny spell. We have had the sunniest spring since records began which has followed a winter of lower than average rainfall, which in turn followed a summer where water levels were critically low in August.
What can be done about the water loss in the short term?
What can be done about this in the short term?
“Well, we can’t use mains water as it has background levels of chlorine present that would kill off the invertebrate and micro fauna at the base of the food chain. The senior ecologist has advised that raw reservoir water or dechlorinated water would work at a push. We are also looking at tens if not hundreds of thousands of litres being required, which simply can’t be supplied from a metered mains supply.
“I managed to get through to the operations team at one of the water companies, who said it might be feasible to get a 14,000L tanker of dechlorinated water to the site. However since then, the water companies have declared drought conditions nationally and that has changed the game. I followed up with them again this afternoon and they have promised that someone will come back to me on Monday. I haven’t received a flat out ‘No’ so far, so I will keep pushing them until I run out of options.
“There is more, but I think this covers the broad strokes.
“The wildlife pond means a great deal to me and my family. My daughters are distressed by this, as I’m sure many park users and residents are also. I can assure you that everything possible is being done to sort this out, but we are ultimately dealing with forces of nature here.
“What we need above all is rain, and lots of it.
A full solution on the way this winter
“Nonetheless, a programme of winter works has now been designed to improve the pond’s resilience to future warm spells.
“Unfortunately, this does mean the distressing current appearance of the pond won’t be resolved for at least another 2-3 months.”