Prince Edward County Council is going to consider how its countryside should be developed in the relatively near future.
At a meeting today (Thursday), council heard a delegation from Elizabeth Blomme and Bill Bonter of Natural Heritage Conservation Prince Edward County.
Elizabeth Blomme and Bill Bonter. (Photo: Quinte News)
The group is concerned too many fence lines and hedgerows are being removed on farm fields, leading to soil erosion, destruction of wildlife corridors, and making agricultural land unattractive to visitors and tourists.
Bill Bonter says removing hedgerows or fence lines leads to more danger in snowstorms for drivers and causes a loss of valuable topsoil.
Natural Heritage Conservation Prince Edward County believes not enough attention has been paid to the issue in the Official Plan and that the county has been working
with land use studies that were created years ago, in 2001.
An Official Plan update is now in the works.
Many on council are leery of further regulation dictating what farmers can and cannot do on their land.
County staff will be presenting a report on land use, with a focus on hedgerows and fence lines, in a couple of months.
See Natural Heritage Conservation Prince Edward County’s Facebook page.
