It’s easy to forget, when we talk about the ponds that have dried up across Longstanton, that most of them were much enjoyed local beauty spots, close to homes and playing a big part in the daily experience of people living around them.
The pond in Ladywalk, a residential close near the village Co-op store, is much older than the houses that were built around it in the mid-1970s. A groundwater-fed pond, it was a focal point for Ladywalk residents and a spot often visited by other villagers. It supported wildlife and gave pleasure every day.
Looking at the pond when I visited in early September 2022, it was hardly possible to recognise that it used to be a body of water, as reeds, weeds and bulrushes now choke the entire area that was previously home to ducks, moorhens and the occasional heron, as well as providing a place for birds and animals to drink.
Ladywalk residents Richard, Maggie and Heather told me their histories with the pond, and how they feel about its loss.
Richard
Richard is a retired Managing Director and one of the most long-standing residents of Ladywalk, having moved in very soon after the houses were built in the 1970s.
“We moved here in 1976 and it was the pond that was the real magnet, a feature that was very rare if you looked at new builds at that time. Over the years we’ve often thought about moving and have looked at other properties, but the pond always put the edge on where we were – it deterred us from moving. There were Khaki Campbells (a type of wild duck) regularly breeding on the little island. It’s not until recent years, since the Northstowe dewatering and losing the pond, that the disappointment and anger that the beauty spot has gone has built up.
“The water level used to go up and down with the seasons, sometimes it was lower and at other times almost overflowing. But the correlation between the starting of the building and the water loss is remarkable. I think October 2016 (not many months after dewatering started at Northstowe) was the first time it completely dried out and reed started growing.
“I spent two or three autumns actually going into the pond and trying to cut back some of the reed and dig some of it out. We did get one of South Cambs’ pond specialists to come over, there was enough water at that time for him to have waders on. He was very good and talked about a scheme whereby the pond could be dredged, and herbicide put on the weeds… but he said South Cambs had no funding to support it. The Northstowe story about dewatering hadn’t come into the public domain at that point. It’s just got beyond the point of management now, really, it needs plant and contractors to come in and do it, but it’s all down to the loss of the water
“A neighbour had a valuation done on his house in the ’80s, and he was told by the valuer that the pond added about £10,000 to the value back then, and that would be considerably more now. So if your property value was enhanced by the pond, now that the pond’s gone the opposite must be the case.
“I lay the blame for our pond fairly and squarely with South Cambs. It’s happened under their watch, there can be no doubt about it. We knew there was going to be a new town, there was no secret. What we didn’t know about was the environmental damage as a result of the building. And that’s really the contentious issue, that it’s been done without regard to the environmental impact on the surrounding areas.”
Maggie
Maggie is a retired Senior Nurse who worked in the NHS for 40 years and in A&E at Addenbrooke’s for 27 years.
“I moved in nine years ago. I wanted to move into a bungalow, so I started looking around the area, and was so happy to find this property with this beautiful pond in Ladywalk. I could see that there were ducks and moorhens, and I knew that a heron had been seen on the pond too, as one of my interests is wildlife. The pond was a major reason for me deciding to buy the bungalow.
“I was aware that Northstowe was going to be built, so I went to the South Cambs offices and had a look at their plans, and I could see that Northstowe wouldn’t be that close to the bungalow, so the building wouldn’t bother me. But I was totally unaware at that time that they would do this dewatering, to lower the water levels to build Northstowe.
“In the middle of the pond there was a little island, and that’s where the ducks and moorhens would go to nest. I’ve also got a pic which I took from my kitchen window. It was getting near dusk, and there was a heron sitting on the tree.
“The other thing that used to happen is that families would bring their kids up to look at the ducks and walk around the pond. So I did really enjoy the pond when I moved in, it was beautiful. But the building in Northstowe started in 2015, and the pond has now been destroyed and is totally dry.
“There’s a feeling of such sadness now. To restore the pond, you’d have to have it dredged out. But there’s no point in doing that while there’s no water. We can’t go forward with sorting the pond out until the water levels return.
“I hold South Cambs district council responsible for what’s happened — for allowing all this to go through and not doing the proper checks. I don’t think they did enough to check what was going on in the environment. They have got to take responsibility for what’s happened and work out how they’re going to fix it.”
Heather
Heather is a full-time carer for her father and her mother-in-law, both of whom live with Heather and her husband.
“We’ve not been here that long, since 2019. We were looking for somewhere we could build an annexe, because we were bringing two very elderly, infirm relatives, one with dementia, and we just thought that sitting out at the front, looking at the pond, would give real quality of life, especially as one of them had been in a care home for two years, partly through lockdown, and there was no quality of life there.
“Even then a third of the pond was the Norfolk reed, which is very aggressive, but we could still see the duck island, and the rest was water. We fed the ducks and the moorhens. I had a view of the pond from my house, and the ducks and some of the moorhens would actually come up to my front door and ask for their dinners. I’ve got a video of two of the ducks coming up to be fed. This was in the spring when there was a little water in it, enough for the ducks to swim in this end, which is now full of Norfolk reed.
“The pond was definitely one of the big things for us, because we were looking after elderly people with very little mobility, and we thought we could pop them in a chair outside with a cup of tea and that would be a blessing to them, and improve their quality of life. Now the Norfolk reed has completely taken over, the amount of water hasn’t been able to sustain anything, and the ducks and the moorhens have gone now. I don’t think the ducks will come back again.
“During 2020, Longstanton walked around that pond. I watched them all. And I got a sculpture done on a tree that we felled. We kept two metres of it and we put an owl sculpture on it, on the border of my land and the pond land. We did it so that when the families would bring their children, they could point out the owl – it was all part of the community thing.
“I really want that pond back. For every single parent that brought children round in the 2020 lockdown walks, it wasn’t just Ladywalk’s pond — that little space was part of keeping community going.
“We took my mother-in-law out of the care home last August, so she hasn’t really experienced what we did the first couple of years, in terms of the ducks and wildlife. And we kept on saying to her ‘you’re coming to live with us, we’ve got ducks, we’ve got a pond, you can sit out there.’ We were going to do some planting so that you could have a nice secluded chair and sit there and watch… it was all going to be part of the enrichment of a lady who we’re losing. So it is with sadness that we can’t show her what we saw in 2019, when it wasn’t as bad compared to what it is now.
“I would like us to be able to move forward to maintain that pond, and I’m happy to put money and effort into doing that, but obviously not until the aquifer is sorted and we have the water back. All our family is positive, about even getting our wellies on, if it took that.
“Who do we feel is responsible for what has been allowed to happen? The council. They’ve allowed it. They should support and protect and that’s not happened. A mixture of the council and the builders. They’ve not told the truth. I think they don’t even know what the truth is that they’ve not told us. The public needs to be informed about these things. I hadn’t a clue, but now when I go out for a walk I’m telling people – go on Facebook, find the LEGG group, get involved.”
“What it is now.” This photo was taken from almost the same viewpoint
as the 2014 one at the start of this article – but in September 2022.
Why has the Ladywalk pond dried out?
The pond at Ladywalk, like most ponds and wells across Longstanton, was fed by groundwater, specifically an aquifer running beneath the village (and surrounding areas) called the River Terrace Deposit Secondary A.
Aquifers are something like rivers, but running underground, and carried through deposits of gravels. Water seeps up through such gravels and in certain places fills and feeds ponds. The same water permeates the earth, providing moisture to trees and plants, and in parts of Longstanton this groundwater used to be just a few inches below the surface of the ground.
Dewatering of a huge area of the Northstowe site was done to make house building possible on land that some would describe as not ideally suited to it (see our feature on the story behind the land that was chosen for the new town). Water is sucked out of the ground while foundations and other essential services are built, and the effect can extend much further than the building land itself.
Groundwater levels are then meant to recover over a short period of time – dewatering is not supposed to be permanent – but in the case of Longstanton’s groundwater, this has never happened, and dry ponds and wells, dying trees and other effects are the visible signs of the loss of the water.
We believe that our RTD aquifer has been interfered with to such an extent that it will not recover until remedial action is taken by Northstowe’s developers and South Cambs District Council. It also appears that deliberate use may have been made of the aquifer water to fill ornamental and sports lakes at Northstowe, and this must be investigated and explained.
Moreover, with the forthcoming development of Phase 3 of Northstowe, SCDC themselves admit that Longstanton’s groundwater levels, already reduced by around five metres, would drop by a further 2-3 metres. This reduction is described by them as ‘insignificant’. However, we believe that at that point most of Longstanton’s trees would be in grave danger. Can you imagine living in the village with no trees?
This feature was written by Debbie Poyser and the photographs were taken by by Richard Franklin, Maggie O’Moore and Debbie Poyser