Balderton Lake petition signed by thousands handed to parish council

Dozens of people turned out as a Hands Off Balderton Lake petition was handed to the parish council.

3,795 people signed the petition, which was presented to lake-owners Balderton Parish Council yesterday evening.

The community environmental group SWAN - Save Wildlife and Nature Group - is opposed to YMCA Newark and Sherwood’s plans to use the lake for watersports.

Roughly 50 campaigners gathered outside of the Balderton Village Centre to hand over the petition to the council, asking them to keep the lake boat-free.

The petition was presented to the parish council by five year-olds, Arrietty Oldham and Jessica Thompson and was accepted by councillor Lydia Hurst.

Emma Oldham organised the Hands Off Balderton Lake petition and said: "We're hoping that Balderton Parish Council will do the right thing and listen to their parishioners.

"This big decision taken by the council to grant the YMCA a licence to put boats on the lake was thrust upon the Balderton community with no public consultation.

"Balderton Lake is a massive refuge to wildlife and protected species including kingfishers, otters and bats.

"A lot of people use the lake every single day for mental health and wellbeing, exercise and connecting with nature. To suddenly see that there is was commercial agreement and exploitation of the lake with no community input felt wrong and caused a lot of upset and concern from residents.

"So we set up the petition to give the people a platform to tell the council that they didn't want this to go ahead.

"We don't want YMCA to stop their plans of providing children with that experience, we just want to help them move it over to a lake that's much safer for the children and larger so that the activities don't impose so much on wildlife and the residents that live there."

Of the 3,796 people that signed the petition, it was said roughly 90% of signatories are members of the community with the remaining 10% made up of people from outside its boundaries.

Balderton Parish Council officially accepted the petition during its meeting last night and said that the proposals outlined within it would be reviewed at a later date.

The YMCA previously said: “We have a deep respect for protecting wildlife in Newark and YMCA has taken every due diligence to ensure all plans remain considerate of the environment as a key priority throughout this project."

It stressed small groups of young people would be able to use a small portion of the lake on a limited number of days at select times of the year.