August 2022
On 24th July 2022 a fire took place on the common destroying the majority of the land.
On the 2nd August, Knodishall Parish Council arranged an extraordinary meeting to discuss the fire that took place on the common and many residents arrived to either air their concerns, understand how it happened and to look at ways to restore the common. As you can imagine many residents including some in attendance had to be evacuated from their homes which left them devastated and distraught and some thinking they may never see their homes again.
The room had high energy and ultimately looking for answers in connection to the fire – as council we could only answer so much as the common is managed by Rural payments agency (RPA) and natural England so our first port of call was to contact them and discuss further, we have since done this and this is currently being investigated, the next step is for organisations such as natural England and wildlife trust (to be instructed by RPA) to visit the common and arrange a new plan on how to restore the common.
With regards to damage to the common, it completely destroyed the common land which included many mature trees, plants and buses, luckily no council assets were damaged other than a sign which was ran over by a fire engine when attending and of course no buildings or people were hurt during these events.
November 2022
On 10th November Natural England and Wildlife trust visited Knodishall common met by Cllr Black & Cllr Hayward to discuss the fire the management plan due to expire in March 2023.
Please attached a summary of the meeting that took place.
Knodishall-Common-site-visit-10th-November-2023.pdf
UPDATE: July 2023
On 1st April 2023 the HLS agreement was extended for a further 5 years, following advice and site visits from Natural England and the Wild Life trust it was decided that no further changes are required from the Management plan already in place therefore the published management plan will be active until March 2028
January 2024
Wildlife Trust have now completed a full and thorough review and updated the Common Management Plan. please refer to files below
Cllr Liz Hayward is the Common Fire Watch Officer. Tel. 01728 832695.
Anyone interested in helping on the Common should contact the Clerk
