Cambridge's Coldham's Common is a designated local nature reserve...
http://lnr.cambridge.gov.uk/nature_reserve/coldhams-common/
However, that definition, grandiose and official as it sounds, is actually a bit loose in my opinion... Coldham's Common is more a collection of sports fields, general, grassed open spaces and (genuine) wild borders and corridors... some following field edges, others, the small stream (Coldham's Brook), which forms both the space's northern and eastern boundaries. It is also bisected by the Cambridge to Ipswich branchline!
The reason I say all that is because, unlike most of Cambridge's other public open spaces and commons, it is heavily used by sports teams, and so (presumably) has a management plan oriented around both the needs of the pitches' maintenance as well as any wildlife in the vicinity.
It is in the news (http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/New-10-year-vision-management-loved-Cambridge/story-28884179-detail/story.html) because a new "ten year Operational Management Plan" has been mooted by the City Council... a plan that accepts the Common as a "multifunctional, natural green space".
I would therefore like to counter that any "multifunctional space", regardless of how green, is not a nature reserve! Otherwise, we could start pretending that some of the better back gardens out there are also full-on nature reserves, even if the trees are used for goalposts, and the lawn for swingball!
As I type this, I have not yet digested all the material available or made a definitive opinion on any of the proposals... so I am therefore just making a quick blog post here as a holder for further comment...
and...
...to point out AGAIN that, if a place like Coldham's Common is a multifunctional, natural green space (and, maybe that's fair enough!)... what a shame the Phase 2 (2014) extension (http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/New-habitats-created-Logans-Meadow-nature-reserve-Cambridge/story-22497281-detail/story.html) to Logan's Meadow (see my blog entry 'Missed Opportunity?' from last year: http://streetnveg.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/missed-opportunity.html) could not have been more radical in scope and pushed forward towards being a 100% guaranteed, fairdinkum, showcase nature reserve!
https://www.cambridge.gov.uk/logans-meadow-local-nature-reserve
Angela Briggs, Planning Officer, apparently said "the nature reserve was a “green lung” between Riverside and the Vie development". I (still) fully agree with that... but I would also add that, if we are going to athropomorphise things correctly, lungs tend to come in pairs... and the other lung in this case has collapsed, and is covered in dog poo.
ZeeOx
