Having faced down the threat of an M4 motorway slicing through the landscape, the Gwent Levels are now threatened by multiple applications for solar plants and business parks that would damage SSSIs and precious habitat.

Julian Hoffman is backing Gwent Wildlife Trust’s campaign to call a halt on significant development on these nationally important wetlands until full formal protection is in place.  A Senedd (Welsh Parliament) petition to that effect is currently running, with the aim of gaining 10,000 signatures, and triggering a debate in a full plenary session.

In his acclaimed book, Irreplaceable, Hoffman visits the Gwent Levels, and in the chapter,  The Sum of a Place, eloquently describes the wonder of this often undervalued and overlooked landscape. 

“It’s utterly dismaying to see there are yet more proposals for damaging developments on the Gwent Levels in Wales, especially as the fight to save this extraordinary place against plans to drive a motorway through the middle of its protected spaces was only so recently won,” says Hoffman.

“Of all the threatened places I wrote about in Irreplaceable, the Gwent Levels was easily the most magical. It always feels like there’s some remarkable surprise waiting just around the corner for you, from the prehistoric footprints preserved in the Severn estuary and the elegant, historic churches of the region’s villages to the beautiful pair of common cranes that I watched in the summer light of a shimmering lagoon one afternoon – a pair of cranes that would end up raising the first crane chick to be born in Wales for 400 years.

And it seemed so right that these rare and impressive birds should choose the Gwent Levels as their place of homecoming in Wales, because not only is it an invaluable wetland and rich mosaic landscape that supports countless wild species across its meadows, marshes and reens, but it’s also a place that’s been influenced by human history in such a way that bolsters rather than lessens biodiversity.

From the Roman legionnaires and medieval monks who first shaped this ancient place to the farmers and conservationists who help maintain it today, culture and nature aren’t separate things on the Gwent Levels but are intimately entwined. And at a time when the nature crisis is increasingly clear for all to see, the Gwent Levels is an exceptional haven for wildlife, enabling species as varied as water voles, avocets and otters, alongside numerous aquatic invertebrates and wildflowers, to thrive. The Gwent Levels is an irreplaceable national treasure – a compelling part of Wales’s rich heritage as well as a uniquely beautiful living landscape. One that deserves celebration, stewardship and protection, not only for its vital importance today but to ensure that it flourishes into the future for those generations to come.”

Gwent Wildlife Trust’s flagship Magor Marsh reserve, is one of the areas directly threatened (by the Magor Solar power station proposal), this wetland is one of the last remaining pieces of natural fenland that once covered the Levels. Wetlands like this were once commonplace across Britain but they are now one of the UK’s most threatened habitats. Other major threats currently facing Gwent Levels SSSIs include the huge Hendre Lakes Business Park.

Gwent Wildlife Trust CEO, Adam Taylor, is at pains to point out that the charity is not anti-solar, just concerned that such plants are sited in an appropriate location.

“The Gwent Levels are an ancient landscape, rich in culture and important for biodiversity, recreation, flood alleviation, carbon storage and food production. They are now facing multiple, adjacent, enormous solar proposals, and business parks as well as other development projects.

The Welsh planning system in its present form is unable to control such development, and the destruction which these would cause under present arrangements would mean the end of this beautiful, fragile and complex wetland.

“We need to stress that we are not opposed to solar energy, simply that such developments need to be located on land where they will not irretrievably damage a nationally important and designated landscape, teeming with wildlife.  We have already seen the damage caused by the existing solar plant on the Gwent Levels, where a hugely important lapwing breeding site was destroyed.”

Senedd petition:

Gwent Wildlife Trust’s plea to everyone who loves this special landscape to sign and share the Senedd petition.

Halt significant new development on the Gwent Levels SSSI

  Please add your name by clicking here.

Signing this e-action means that, while being fully aware of the threats posed by the Climate and Nature Emergencies, you call on the Minister and the Senedd to take measures to halt significant new development on the Gwent Levels.