Urban beavers reintroduced to London after 400 years
In an industrial corner of west London this morning there was a scene not witnessed for at least 400 years – a family of beavers starting to make themselves at home.
Their wooded pond in Perivale has changed a bit since beavers were hunted to extinction in Elizabethan times.
It’s just a few hundred yards from a 24-hour McDonald’s and surrounded by the sound of lorries thundering along the A404.
But it didn’t seem to faze the long-absent semi-aquatic mammals as they nosed their way around their new habitat.
And that’s what makes this reintroduction – a partnership between a number of local environment groups, the Beaver Trust and Ealing Council – a significant one.
It’s the first in a properly urban setting.
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan helped to release the beaver family
“We’re excited to show they can have benefits in the urban landscape, not only for wildlife but for people too,” said Dr Sean McCormack, chair of the Ealing Wildlife Group.
The beavers are an adult pair, their juvenile daughter and two new – also female – kits.
‘ASBO beavers’
They’ve been brought down from Scotland from an established population in Tayside. They are what are known as “ASBO beavers” – removed from their home in Scotland because they were forcing part of a farmer’s field to flood.
One of the main arguments for their reintroduction is their role as “ecosystem engineers”.
Beavers’ appetite for woody food in the winter naturally coppices trees improving biodiversity and their dambuilding behaviour has been shown to retain rainfall and alleviate flooding.
“Over the coming years they should provide effective nature-based solutions to urban problems such as flood mitigation and improved water quality,” Dr McCormack added.
Indeed, the Costams Brook that flows through the beavers’ new habitat regularly floods the nearby junction and shopping centre.
But once the journalists filming their release move away and they’re left to explore their new home in peace, the “Ealing 5” will find they’re not really free.
A 1.8km (1.1 mile) metal fence surrounds their new habitat – much to the frustration of wildlife experts.
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Freeing beavers ‘not a priority’
The government completed a consultation on allowing beavers to be released properly into the wild two years ago.
However, the current government has stated freeing beavers is “not a priority”.
This has only added to concerns that a wider commitment to restore biodiversity in 30% of UK habitats by 2030 isn’t being taken seriously.
One amplified by the recent State of Nature report concluding, once again, the UK is one of the most nature-depleted places in Europe.
Campaign groups argue restoring habitats is about the lowest-cost way to help meet ambitious net zero targets and address increasing flooding risk as the climate warms. Even more low-cost if animals like beavers will do that work for free.
But when it comes to wildlife policies the government has been effectively, “treading water for over a year”, according to Alastair Driver, director of Rewilding Britain, “nothing’s happening, nothing substantial, [they] won’t even talk, [they] won’t even have a conversation about what might be possible.”
Defra reject that claim. A spokesman said: “We published a plan to deliver our environmental goals in January through the Environmental Improvement Plan, and will set out our progress on 30 by 30 as promised by the end of the year.”
And so far the Labour Party hasn’t clearly laid out what plans it would have for wildlife if elected.
But local projects like the one in Ealing show progress is happening anyway according to Mr Driver. And even shows how beavers can be managed.
Provided they can learn some street smarts in their new urban home – their relocation could prove how beavers might properly be returned to the wild in an England that’s very different to the one they once lived in.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has said Runcorn needs a new Labour MP after Mike Amesbury was jailed for beating up a constituent – and will keep his £91,000 MPs salary in prison.
She told Wilfred Frost on Sky News Breakfast: “Whether it is resigning or through recall, everyone’s clear – the people of Runcorn deserve better representation, and that would come by having a newly elected MP.”
Amesbury, who has been an MP since 2017, remains as the MP for Runcorn and Helsby after being jailed for 10 weeks on Monday.
He had at an earlier hearing pleaded guilty to assaulting Paul Fellows, 45 by punching him to the ground and hitting him five more times in Frodsham, Cheshire, after a night out last October.
He has not resigned, despite calls for him to do so.
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The 55-year-old MP will keep receiving his £91,000 salary while in prison because parliamentary rules state a recall petition, which kickstarts a by-election, can only happen once an appeal period for a custodial sentence of a year or less is exhausted.
Amesbury’s lawyer stated in court he would be appealing the 10-week sentence, of which the MP will serve four weeks in HMP Altcourse in Liverpool.
There is also no mechanism to stop pay for MPs, unless they are suspended from the House of Commons, which has not yet happened for Amesbury.
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CCTV shows Labour MP punch man
Ms Cooper added: “It’s completely unacceptable what has happened. No matter who you are. No one is above the law.”
On whether the government is considering changing the law so MPs who receive a prison sentence can no longer serve as an MP, Ms Cooper said: “I think these are matters, obviously, for the parliamentary authorities and processes that is separate from the decisions government make.
“But we are clear we need a new representation in Runcorn.”
Conservative shadow minister Victoria Atkins told Sky News the public and MPs have been “disgusted” by Amesbury keeping his job and called for the rules to be changed.
“I find it extraordinary that someone can claim their salary from their prison cell when their job is to be here in parliament, representing their constituents,” she said.
“I think the government needs to look at this and we will look at these measures very, very carefully, whatever they bring forward.
“I share the public’s disgust that a Labour MP is sitting in prison, serving a prison sentence because he beat up a constituent.”
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Mike Amesbury punched Paul Fellows to the ground then punched him five more times
Amesbury was suspended by Labour two days after the incident, after CCTV footage was widely distributed.
He has been sitting as an independent since then and Labour has said he will not be admitted back in.
Reform UK has also called for Amesbury “to do the honourable thing and resign immediately”.
Amesbury pleaded guilty to assault by beating in January and described the incident as “highly regrettable” and apologised to Mr Fellows and his family outside the court.
After the judge left the courtroom in Chester on Monday, following sentencing, Amesbury’s lawyer asked for him to return and requested bail while he appealed the sentence.
Judge Tan Ikram returned to the court, sat down, paused briefly and said: “Application refused.”
The head of NHS England has announced she is standing down.
Amanda Pritchard was the first woman to take on the role in 2021, having previously served as NHS England’s chief operating officer, and before that, the former head of Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.
Her decision to step down comes weeks after MPs on the cross-party Commons public accounts and health and social care committees accused her of lacking the “drive and dynamism” to radically reform the service.
It has been a “hugely difficult decision for me to stand down”, she said in a statement on Tuesday.
“I believe now is the right time – with the NHS making continued progress in our recovery, and with the foundations firmly in place to deliver the 10 Year Health Plan.”
She said it had been “an enormous privilege to lead the NHS in England through what has undoubtedly been the most difficult period in its history”.
“The NHS is full of extraordinary people, who do extraordinary things every day for patients,” she said, adding: “I am confident they will continue to achieve incredible things for patients now, and into the future.”
Ms Pritchard giving evidence to MPs in the House of Commons earlier this month. Pic: PA
MPs on the health and social care committee earlier this month said they were disappointed and frustrated by the “lengthy and diffuse answers” Ms Pritchard and other officials gave them under questioning.
Last week, she admitted “we’re not all brilliant performers at committee hearings” as she was challenged on the issue on BBC Breakfast.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting said Ms Pritchard could be “enormously proud” of her tenure.
He said: “Amanda can be enormously proud of the leadership she has given in the face of the biggest health emergency for our country in modern history, as well as steering NHS England during turbulent political waters and six secretaries of state in her time as chief executive.
“She has led with integrity and unwavering commitment.”
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NHS England said that having discussed everything with Mr Streeting in recent months – and now that the NHS has “turned a corner on recovery from the pandemic and the foundations are in place to make the necessary changes to the centre to best support the wider NHS” – Ms Pritchard had “decided now is the right time to stand down”.
Sir James Mackey will take over as “transition” chief executive from the first of April on a secondment basis, it said.
He is the chief executive of Newcastle Hospitals Foundation Trust and national director of elective recovery.
Ms Pritchard, who is married with three children and studied modern history at St Anne’s College, Oxford, was also deputy chief executive at Chelsea and Westminster NHS Foundation Trust.
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