National Grid ethical company or environmental villain

Thursday 9th June 2011

Buglife is fighting to protect a wildlife haven on the Isle of Grain in Kent from a huge national grid warehouse and lorry park development.

Matt Shardlow, Buglife Chief Executive Officer, being handed the Observer Ethical Award by Deborah Meaden and national grid Managing Director Nick Winser.

This bug paradise is home to a variety of beautiful, rare and endangered insects including a large population of threatened bumblebee species.

The land supports Open Mosaic Habitat that is heavenly for bugs! It is full of wildflowers for bees to feed on, bare ground for beetles to bask and burrow into and pools for dragonflies to breed in.

White eye-stripe hoverfly © Mikel Tapia Arriada	Shrill carder bee © MJ Clarke	Brown banded carder bee © Sam Ashfield

Brown banded carder-bee, White eye-stripe hoverfly and Shrill carder-bee - some of the rare and threatened species endangered by national grid. For more information about this bumblebee paradise click on this link.

Buglife have initiated a legal challenge to Medway Council’s decision to allow the land owned by national grid to be developed.

The Judge set out that the Environmental information was “wholly inadequate” for instance there were “no details of the bee population”. The Judge recommended that national grid must stop spraying pesticides and allow the ecology to recover before undertaking further surveys so that the importance of the wildlife can be properly understood.

National grid stand to make tens of millions of pounds profit from the development and are refusing to meet Buglife to discuss how they could minimise damage to wildlife. Indeed they continue to spray the habitat with pesticides.

To support Buglife's campaign to save this bumblebee paradise from National Grid’s development plans please pledge your support by completing this simple online form asking national grid to:

• Commit to conserving the bumblebees and other endangered species living on the Isle of Grain and working with Buglife.
• Reduce the size of their development.
• Stop spraying pesticides on the Isle of Grain Open Mosaic Habitat.