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[Norman Castle]

OK, I now know that ...

1  There is definitely a Great Crested Newt in the Council's boating lake

2  It can't be removed from the boating lake without a licence from Natural England

3  Getting a licence from Natural England will take a long time

4  Despite the boating lake being 100% unnatural, it is a body of water with a newt in it, therefore it is the newt's natural environment

5  The Council apparently stopped using weedkiller because they shouldn't have been using it anyhow, because the overflow apparently goes into a watercourse

This is not looking good ... 

Edited to add - I also learned that the general feeling at the Town Hall is/was that the weed wasn't a particular problem.  Apparently this is/was based on a Council employee having once spoken to a couple of blokes sailing boats on the pond who "weren't bothered by the weed because they had a rescue boat with them ... "

There are lessons to be learned here, chaps 
 
 

[Netleyned]

If Natural England is involved you have a fight on your hands.
This is the quango that have stopped the RNLI from building
a new boathouse to take a bigger boat at Cleethorpes as it
would annoy the worms living in the muddy sand


Ned

[Nemo]

OK, I now know that ...

1  There is definitely a Great Crested Newt in the Council's boating lake

2  It can't be removed from the boating lake without a licence from Natural England

3  Getting a licence from Natural England will take a long time

4  Despite the boating lake being 100% unnatural, it is a body of water with a newt in it, therefore it is the newt's natural environment

5  The Council apparently stopped using weedkiller because they shouldn't have been using it anyhow, because the overflow apparently goes into a watercourse

This is not looking good ... 

Edited to add - I also learned that the general feeling at the Town Hall is/was that the weed wasn't a particular problem.  Apparently this is/was based on a Council employee having once spoken to a couple of blokes sailing boats on the pond who "weren't bothered by the weed because they had a rescue boat with them ... "

There are lessons to be learned here, chaps 

Norman:  There is so much ambiguity here as the Councils left and right hand do not seem to work with each other!
1. The Town Council are well aware of the problem as it has been reported to them time and time again by our club members for at least 2 years.
2. The comment I have highlighted is rubbish and probably invented: eg Why would anyone want a rescue-boat in a pond with a depth of 18" at most?  What a useful word 'apparently' is!
The pond has no outflow that I know of. It is simply rainfed and depletes with evaporation..
3. The problem is not just one single newt as that would not stop boating. It is the proliferation of the weed that has been allowed to reach unsatisfactory levels to such a degree that any attempt to dispose of it, chemical or otherwise, will disturb one b****y newt! Total Town Hall negligence.
You are correct - it is not looking good - as a public facility provided for public use and paid for with our council tax has been denied to everyone, young and old for it's intended purpose - a boating lake, by official tardyness.

In any event, the ecologist working with our council is on our side and some form of compromise may be likely? The council, despite wringing their hands and apologising, I feel have reached for your can of worms and wished they hadn't!

[Charlie]

Can i enquire if you have asked the council about the possibility of using the Natural product, Dyofix, as suggested by Kinmel? Since it is not a weedkiller, it shouldn't harm the Newts. Got to be worth a try.

[Norman Castle]

In any event, the ecologist working with our council is on our side ...

Be that as it may, it's a pity that when he found this confounded creature, he didn't have the sense to head off the inevitable consequences by just quietly removing it to some more suitable location.

Can i enquire if you have asked the council about the possibility of using the Natural product, Dyofix, as suggested by Kinmel? Since it is not a weedkiller, it shouldn't harm the Newts. Got to be worth a try.

I mentioned this this very morning and gathered that anything even sounding like a weedkiller is now a no-no lest traces of it find their way into a watercourse and poison half the townsfolk (this notwithstanding Nemo's observation above about the overflow).

But anyhow, I think I have a way forward.  Somebody just needs to go on Facebook and find us an obliging newt-fancier who could be prevailed upon to come here in the dead of night and rehouse the newt upon payment of a crisp £50 note and a couple of bottles of my home brew, with the assurance that if he's nicked for it, we'll all gladly chuck a tenner in the hat and pay his fine.

[boneash]

           
              A certain ex mayor of a large city comes to mind !!

[Norman Castle]

           
              A certain ex mayor of a large city comes to mind !!

Red Ken's certainly the only newt-fancier I've ever heard of, but I can't see him being up for the job.

I must keep reminding myself, though - it's not actually this blessed newt that's the problem.  That's just the current excuse why the Council can't do anything about the weed. 

[kinmel]

I mentioned this this very morning and gathered that anything even sounding like a weedkiller is now a no-no lest traces of it find their way into a watercourse and poison half the townsfolk (this notwithstanding Nemo's observation above about the overflow).

Contact Natural England yourself and get their view about using Dyofix in the lake and copy the reply to every councillor.

[Vts99]

Why not purchase the dyofix and accidently drop the required amount in the pond when it's quiet and see what happens lol

[Arrow5]

Photograph a plastic pond Heron with a rubber newt in it`s beak, send to local paper.

[TomHugill]

           
              A certain ex mayor of a large city comes to mind !!

Or anyone who doesn't want a £5000 fine per dead newt......

[Nemo]

Can i enquire if you have asked the council about the possibility of using the Natural product, Dyofix, as suggested by Kinmel? Since it is not a weedkiller, it shouldn't harm the Newts. Got to be worth a try.

Thanks Charlie. As a member of the Crowborough MBC I can confirm that the council have been notified of Dyofix and one other possible method. We are now living in hopes. 

[imsinking]

Why not purchase the dyofix and accidently drop the required amount in the pond when it's quiet and see what happens lol

Don't even THINK about doing that , as soon as anyone sees the colour change . . . . .
Stop referring to DYOFIX as WEED KILLER . . .it is a weed INHIBITOR and works by preventing the red band of light getting to the base of weeds thus stopping growth , guaranteed to have no effect on wildlife , and is , in fact, widely used by commercial fish farms.
Sunlight is only one source of food for weed , it can adapt to using anything organic to promote growth, so water management is all important . . and paper / dog c**p / used nappies / food etc must be removed on a weekly basis .
Bill

[Nemo]

Be that as it may, it's a pity that when he found this confounded creature, he didn't have the sense to head off the inevitable consequences by just quietly removing it to some more suitable location.

I mentioned this this very morning and gathered that anything even sounding like a weedkiller is now a no-no lest traces of it find their way into a watercourse and poison half the townsfolk (this notwithstanding Nemo's observation above about the overflow).

But anyhow, I think I have a way forward.  Somebody just needs to go on Facebook and find us an obliging newt-fancier who could be prevailed upon to come here in the dead of night and rehouse the newt upon payment of a crisp £50 note and a couple of bottles of my home brew, with the assurance that if he's nicked for it, we'll all gladly chuck a tenner in the hat and pay his fine.

I am advised now that several of the little gits are present, so there may be more. You are not alone in being  upset about it - so are 70+ members of our Club. Save yourself a lot of angst as we have quite a few members haranguing them now.  We all agree on the stupidity of it all.


They never had any complaints before - even when my Nellie (Nessie's cousin) was swimming around there.
                         

[Nemo]

Don't even THINK about doing that , as soon as anyone sees the colour change . . . . .
Stop referring to DYOFIX as WEED KILLER . . .it is a weed INHIBITOR and works by preventing the red band of light getting to the base of weeds thus stopping growth , guaranteed to have no effect on wildlife , and is , in fact, widely used by commercial fish farms.
Sunlight is only one source of food for weed , it can adapt to using anything organic to promote growth, so water management is all important . . and paper / dog c**p / used nappies / food etc must be removed on a weekly basis .
Bill

I think it could and should be used asap, but you know what Council jobsworths are like!  Do you know what colour the water becomes when the stuff is applied?

[imsinking]

Our Lake at New Brighton is a nice Mediterranean blue, the depth of the water makes it look bluer than it actually is  . . a bucketful has hardly any tinge to it .
Dyofix also do a BLACK version , & that looks UGLY , the fishpond guy's like that one for some reason , google Dyofix & all the info you need is there including prices (Domestic prices WOW - Commercial prices not bad) and a dose calculator too .
Check out Utilities video on Youtube . . .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAOfjWRIBIE
Bill

[BrianB6]

How about requesting the Council to provide a nice big boating lake to replace the one invaded by newts?
Tell them that it would be soooo. good for their ecological image.

[Norman Castle]

How about requesting the Council to provide a nice big boating lake to replace the one invaded by newts?
Tell them that it would be soooo. good for their ecological image.

GIve that man a prize 

[kinmel]

Do you know what colour the water becomes when the stuff is applied?

Passersby  always comment on the nice blue tinge and are amazed when shown a glass of almost clear water as it's taken from the lake.

[malcolmfrary]

The Dyofix might not work well in a shallow pool - the deeper the water, the more effective the filtering of the light that the weeds photosynthesize.  The odd inch or two of water through a glass looks clear, three feet of it, less so.
There has to be either a built in level limiter, visible or not, or the natural drainage in will periodically overflow the pool.  Just left to natural evaporation, the pool would very rapidly become a stagnant mess toxic to everything.
I do like the new pool idea, but fear that, since the lack of attention that caused the problem in the first place probably had cost cutting at its root, paying for a new one would have little chance of happening.

[kinmel]

The Dyofix might not work well in a shallow pool - the deeper the water, the more effective the filtering of the light that the weeds photosynthesize.  The odd inch or two of water through a glass looks clear, three feet of it, less so.
There has to be either a built in level limiter, visible or not, or the natural drainage in will periodically overflow the pool.  Just left to natural evaporation, the pool would very rapidly become a stagnant mess toxic to everything.
I do like the new pool idea, but fear that, since the lack of attention that caused the problem in the first place probably had cost cutting at its root, paying for a new one would have little chance of happening.

Our existing lake is 700mm deep fresh water in a concrete wall and bed lake and Dyofix recommended a a 25% dose increase (250ml rather than 200ml) and that works fine.

No-one is going to get a new lake unless it is just a small part of a bigger project.

We are being thrown off our purpose built lake to make way for housing and we wanted a new similar lake building somewhere else.   Cost of a concrete 40m square lake, 600mm deep, would have been £1.2 million excluding land cost.  As well as the lake itself, construction costs included; surrounding hard surface and landscaping, mains metered water supply and a drainage connection, access road, parking for 25 vehicles, storage building, security fencing etc.  Toilets would require a sewage connection and an electrical supply too.

[phil_parker]

I would help if the title had identified WHICH lake you were referring to.

And for all the fuss, at least someone provides you with a lake. We rent ours from a farmer who dug it and have to handle all the management ourselves. No ringing up and expecting the council to spend tax-payers money on a luxury feature, it all comes out of club funds.

Incidentally, if anyone wants about a ton of carp, we could pull that much out of our water and not miss them...

[Crossie]

 If your town/borough or whatever council is in control of your pond then presumably it is a public place funded by taxes, so how about encouraging pond users to claim some small refund of their community charge citing loss of amenity, faced with even a small loss of funds and a disproportionate amount of paperwork they might seek a sensible solution.

                                 Trevor

[Nemo]

I would help if the title had identified WHICH lake you were referring to.

And for all the fuss, at least someone provides you with a lake. We rent ours from a farmer who dug it and have to handle all the management ourselves. No ringing up and expecting the council to spend tax-payers money on a luxury feature, it all comes out of club funds.

Incidentally, if anyone wants about a ton of carp, we could pull that much out of our water and not miss them...

I think I referred or pond in a post as being used by the Crowborough MBC in East Sussex, although I fail to see why naming it will help. For information, the pond was built as one of the countrywide Millenium projects and is built on land owned by the council and shared with a model railway group. It was not built for the club only, it was for the use of all boaters from children upwards. We just happen to be a club making use of a facility paid for out of OUR council tax.

[Norman Castle]

... It was not built for the club only, it was for the use of all boaters from children upwards.

Indeed.  It's exactly the same kind of facility as the Council playing fields, kids' play areas and so forth.  Imagine the fuss there'd be if the kids' swings, the cricket pitch, the football pitches or the tennis courts were rendered unusable because of the Council's mismanagement.

(Must keep reminding myself that this confounded newt is in fact a red herring ...)