We understand how important the pond is to our local community and especially to our residents living in and around the pond. The Town Council has not forgotten about the pond and work continues behind the scenes towards a programme of improvement works. However, please bear with us because we only have small team and key members are absent at present, making our daily workload extremely challenging between only a few of us. Rest assured that the pond remains a priority. We are consulting with key wildlife pond experts to put together a management plan for the pond at present, so you may see us out and about down at the pond with contractors. These plans will then need to go before Council Members for a decision and approval. We are doing our best to get things moving before we break for elections, during which time meetings will be suspended.
In the meantime, we have approved a partial drain down of the pond that will take place over the next few days. We hope to get the few remaining large fish out and to allow KCC Highways to visually inspect and assess Holden Road, as future repair works to the road may be needed. Any kind of drain down is always an issue, since this pond is not an “online” pond. This means that it is not connected to a water course and will not refill that way. We have to rely on rainfall and as such, that is why we have had to approve these minor works at short notice, before we go into the warmer months. We know that this may be visually unappealing for a period of time, but we have to remove these larger fish because illegal fishing reports have recommenced. It is always hard to get all fish out without a full drain down, as there are pockets under the road where they can hide. It may be that a full drain down is needed in future, for both pond improvements and any necessary road repairs. However, any full drain down plans will need to be carefully considered with regard to timing and refill. We will explore any assistance we can get with refill, as we had some years ago when the pond was last drained down. We will be working with KCC Highways so that we can hopefully tie in improvements with repairs.
Thank you for your patience.
Southborough TC Team
