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Bug lives
12:50:10 15/04/2008
Royal Mail backs down over depot
Plans to build a Royal Mail distribution centre on a wildlife site in East London may not go ahead following pressure from conservation campaigners.
The site at West Thurrock Marshes is a haven for invertebrates, including rare species such as the brown-banded carder bee and the saltmarsh short-spur beetle.
In February this year, the High Court ruled that Thurrock Thames Gateway Development Corporation was right in approving the application. But now, it seems, Royal Mail is not interested, anyway.
In a statement to BBC Wildlife Magazine, a spokesperson for Royal Mail said: “[We] do not have any plans to move on to the Oliver Road site owned by developers Rosemound at Thurrock Marshes and we have been looking at alternative sites for several months.”
Buglife director Matt Shardlow said he was delighted that Royal Mail had “thought better of its decision and pulled out.” But since the company has yet to make a formal statement over the matter, Shardlow said Buglife would continue to maintain that the development and Royal Mail were a threat to wildlife.
The news of Royal Mail’s volte face came just as Buglife was accusing the company of hypocrisy over a set of stamps it issued yesterday featuring some of Britain’s most endangered insects.
Melissa Lennartz-Walker
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