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| One of the ponds at Hesleden with the surface covered in Crassula |
The next stage will be to ask officers to look at all available options in dealing with the issues set out below:
Station House pond
- basically a flooded ditch with both banks dominated with 1 metre of yellow flag iris
- The pond had no water at the time of visit and the base was mud
- There was no evidence of amphibian use
- Approximately 3 metres wide in total with only about 1 metre of open water area evident
- The pond is buffered from the cycleway by a strip about 3 metres wide of tall vegetation that includes great willowherb, hogweed, nettle, cow parsley and red campion
- In my view the vegetated buffer is likely to deter people from the pond edge
- If pond management were to be undertaken, all that is required is a deepening of the central channel as it has silted up. The excavated spoil could be banked up on the 3m buffer strip to further deter people from going near the water
East Terrace pond
- A large, wide and shallow pond planted in in 1990’s with various wetland species
- This pond contains large areas of New Zealand Pigmyweed or Austrailian Swamp stonecrop Crassula helmsii which is a highly invasive non-native species that can totally dominate a pond and is extremely difficult to eradicate. It is banned from sale in the UK and prohibited from introduction into the wild
- The presence of Crassula in this pond means that we are unable to undertake any normal pond management work to it
- Control of Crassula by herbicide requires continued application to the entire pond to ensure no parts of the plant remain. This will also kill all the vegetation in the pond
- Control of Crassula by excavation is very costly and requires strict bio-security measures. Crassula can regenerate from 2mm fragments. This method will also require the total destruction of the pond. No works should be undertaken to this pond without prior consultation with DCC Ecology
