What’s a SANG? and where is Chobham Place Wood?

Patience please.

Briefly, the Thames Basin Heath Special Protection Area [SPA] is a national policy that seeks to protect lowland heathland, specifically for the protection of the habitat of three ground nesting birds. The effect of the policy is to seriously restrict housing development as this inevitably brings greater use of the heathland, which potentially damages the birds habitat.

So far so good. Council’s affected have sought to identify alternative green space land to mitigate the effect of housing development. This is where SANGS come in. In this case a SANG[Suitable Accessible Natural Green Space] is defined as an ‘existing green space which is already accessible but which could be changed in character so that it is more attractive to the specific group of visitors who might otherwise visit the SPA.’

Fine. So where’s Chobham Place Wood. It’s HERE.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what. Well, at last night’s Surrey Heath Council Executive meeting, they decided that Chobham Place Wood would be a SANG. This means that for each new house build in the borough, where the housing units being built are between 1 and 9, that a contribution of £3,500 per dwelling from the developer will contribute to improving public access, amenity and maintenance of Chobham Place wood.

A good result, and a credit to Surrey Heath’s officer’s for getting Natural England to agree to using Chobham Place Wood as a SANG. I imagine it was no easy task.