With the BBC's Springwatch now beaming live into our homes every night from Pensthorpe, a location more or less on our doorsteps, what better time to talk about the wildlife that will be displaced, or in some cases erased completely by the proposed MIN93 site.

The land proposed for the MIN93 site is currently known to be a hunting ground for two endangered and protected species, barn owls and bats.

The barn owl is one of the most widespread vertebrate species on the planet, occurring on every continent except Antarctica. However they are extremely rare in Britain. The most recent survey of their numbers in the UK put their population at around 4400 breeding pairs. As a result, their numbers are closely monitored and their habitats are maintained and protected.
Barn owls feed primarily on small vertebrates, particularly rodents, but also small bats, birds, reptiles and insects. Studies have shown that an individual barn owl may eat one or more rodents per night, while a nesting pair and their young can eat more than 1000 rodents per year.
Additionally, the presence of barn owls is often a good indicator that other endangered species may exist in an area, as it will feed on small reptiles, snakes, dormice and slow worms.

Bats are insectivorous nocturnal mammals who's numbers in the UK are declining quite dramatically. As a consequence, all 17 native UK species of bats are currently protected by law.
Bats feed mainly on small airborne insects, something that's rarely in short supply where livestock farming takes place, and they in turn provide food for the aforementioned barn owls. So already you can see a small-scale food chain starting to form. Remove or damage one link in that chain and you create a devastating knock-on effect for countless other species.

The UK currently has a vast amount of legislation in place to protect its native wildlife, some of it being home-grown, and others imposed by European Union regulations. These include...

Ramsar Convention on Wetlands 1971
Bern Convention 1979
Birds Directive 1979
Bonn Convention 1980
Wildlife & Countryside Act 1981
Earth Summit, Rio de Janeiro 1992
Habitats Directive 1992
Habitats Regulations 1994

In addition to the above list of legislation, there's also Biodiversity Action Plans to be considered.
Biodiversity sounds like a complex concept, but at the nuts and bolts level, it's really quite simple. It's just an umbrella term to describe the variety of all living things. It includes all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, invertebrates, plants, fungi, bacteria, viruses, and their habitats.
Biodiversity Action Plans aren't a uniquely British thing. They exist worldwide. Ours were prepared in response to the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, and they set out ambitious goals, principles and objectives for conserving UK biodiversity. The UK was one of the first countries to produce a strategy, building on our world renowned experience of natural history, conservation and scientific understanding.

Currently, the MIN93 site is known to be home to at least four species listed on the UK's Biodiversity Action Plan. Skylarks, brown hares, song thrushes and tree sparrows.
As a result of this, Norfolk County Council has stated in their Minerals Site Allocations Evidence Base document that a full survey for nesting birds must be carried out during the spring and summer. It will be interesting to find out if they're actually doing this, as I've seen very little evidence of it to date.

Now, lets assume for a moment that NCC do decide to ignore the wishes of the British voting public, and force this quarry proposal through. They've stated that they want the land to be returned to arable land, presumably to restore the habitats for these species, but by the time the quarrying is complete it will be too late as these creatures will have been displaced, or perhaps even driven into extinction.
But wait. We've already established with the assistance of a geology expert that the land cannot be returned to arable land due to the encroaching flood plain, and must instead be allowed to fill with water and become a lake. So that means the site will never attract the same species back again, even if they felt inclined to return.

Perhaps Norfolk County Council ought to ask the wise old barn owl for his opinion on all this.
He's likely to tell them to "Leave my Pentney hunting ground alone".