THERE was one aspect of Councillor Frank Connor's reply (October 31) to my original letter which requires addressing, as it reveals a disturbing trend.

Part of his reply stated: "It is conceivable that the applicants could put in measures to compensate for damage to the habitat, if indeed that proved to be the case." Unfortunately, these "measures" tend to revolve around simply moving the problem elsewhere.

Known as "transplanting," this involves attempting to move plants, insects and amphibians to a new site in the hope that they will re-establish themselves there.

The problem is, the scheme has had only very limited success and is only carried out by conservation groups as a desperate last-ditch attempt to save something of the threatened habitat once development has been granted.

Recent conservation battles, such as Newbury Common, involved last minute attempts to transplant parts of the threatened biological sites, without much success.

It is easy to destroy habitats - it is not so easy to recreate them. The recreated habitat may look identical, but will have lost much of its biodiversity.

Of course if transplanting becomes accepted as anything other than a last resort, a developer could be granted planning consent virtually anywhere - simply by promising to move the habitat to a new site.

Strictly speaking it doesn't work - and even if it did, would it be right and proper to do so?

Unfortunately, the only sure way to protect a habitat, is to refuse any development on it.

A CULVERHOUSE, Cavendish Street, Darwen.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.