photo credit: petergtrimming
Philip Wayre, the man who many credit with turning around the fortunes of the British otter has failed in his bid to turn his Teeside otter sanctuary, Vale House Farm, into a wildlife study centre. Local councilors turned down the plans as he did not provide sufficient background details about the need to convert a field study centre in to a house within the grounds of the centre.
The proposed conversion would have seen the field study building turned into a study area including sitting room, 2 bedrooms, lobby, bathroom and kitchen. While officials had no objections in principle to the change the lack of details in the plans meant that permission could not be granted. There was no details submitted with the application to support the plans to introduce an exempt dwelling on to the site. In particular there were no course details or contracts with educational establishments.
The Otter Trust ran the site as a otter sanctuary and nature reserve. The site undertook captive breeding programmes to help support conservation programmes for otters. The reserve closed to the public about 5 years ago because of lack of funding and staffing levels. The Trust has closed - or sold – it’s other otter sanctuaries across the UK because the number of otters in the wild has now grown substantially.
When the sanctuary at Vale House Farm was closed the Otter Trust guaranteed to keep the sanctuary as a nature reserve staffed by a full time warden. With the Otter Trust now closed there was also questions raised over ownership of the buildings and site which had not been answered in the plans.
The Otter Trust captive breeding programme resulted in 117 otters being released in to the wild in Suffolk, Norfolk, Northants, Rutland, Hampshire, Dorset, Bedfordshire, Essex, Wiltshire, Cambridgeshire and the Upper Thames.
While the Otter Trust may have succeeded in working itself out of existence, Philip Wayre’s conservation work carries on. He is now involved with moorland conservation work and the Lintzgarth Fell Reserve in the Pennines is working towards helping upland moorlands birds such as Black Grouse and lapwings.
Some local residents were not in favour of the change saying that introducing overnight accommodation on to the site would be detrimental to the wildlife of the River Greta valley.
photo credit: petergtrimming
