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2.
 Tentacled
Lagoon Worm probe on new slipway site
An environmental survey to help
to protect the rare Tentacled Lagoon Worm, which is less
than five millimetres long, is being carried out by
engineers wanting to build the first public slipway in
Dartmouth for 50 years.
Proposals to build a new
launching slipway, alongside the Higher Ferry slipway, to
make it easier for both the RNLI to launch its inshore
lifeboat and local boat owners and the town’s rowing club to
get their craft in the water without danger from the ferry
cables are now hanging on an environmental survey of the
river bed.
Low spring tides have been
awaited in order for experts to check the area alongside the
existing slipway where the new one is being planned. The
environmental assessment is being carried out at the moment
(from December 5 onwards) to see whether the Tentacled
Lagoon Worm (Alkmaria romijni) a protected species does
inhabit sediment in that part of the estuary. It is
protected under Scheduled 5 of the Wildlife and Countryside
Act 1981.
The work has been made necessary
since the old slipway is narrow and does not have a kerb to
stop trailers or vehicles slipping over the edge. Also in
certain tidal conditions there was the potential for the
wire hawsers guiding the higher ferry to conflict with the
slipway.
South Hams Senior Planning
Officer Ed Brown said: “As part of the planning application
we need to know what effect we may have on the bed of the
river where the new slipway is going to be constructed. We
have to satisfy ourselves that there will be no damaged to
the ecology of the river. As this is part of the application
we commissioned an ecological assessment. It will
investigate all the ecological implications and see if the
Tentacled Lagoon Worm is present – and suggest appropriate
mitigation if required.” Mr Brown says he will be “taking
advice” from the Environment Agency, Natural England and the
Estuaries Officer of the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
which the slipway plans fall inside. He added: “We have had
sites in the past like this where we have been able to agree
mitigating measures that would allow the development to go
ahead, but we will just have to wait and see if there are
any of these worms in the river there. We understand that
they are found more on the Kingswear side of the estuary.”
Councillor Hilary Bastone, South
Hams District Council member for Dartmouth and Kingswear
said: “I have been fighting for this slipway for 20 years,
but this is just one of the hoops we have to go through.”
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