Bury St Edmunds Cotton Lane Allotment holders call on town council to act on muntjac deer ‘destroying’ crops

An allotment holder in Bury St Edmunds is calling for a plan of action to deal with muntjac deer which are ‘destroying’ crops and damaging biodiversity in the nearby water meadows.

Steve Ohlsen, who has rented an allotment plot in Cotton Lane for over 15 years, said the muntjac deer are forcing plot holders to put fencing around their crops and some are even thinking about giving up their allotments.

He would like Bury St Edmunds Town Council to bring back allotment champions to ensure there is a plan to combat the muntjac issue and implement their request to install composting toilets.

He added: “When you walk down here everyone is having to put up fencing all the way around the plots to keep this alien species out because they’re just destroying crops and forcing people to put up and spend money on defences.

“It’s very disheartening when you try to grow things. There’s mice, pigeons and rats – that’s part of allotment life, but not these beasts.

“There’s thousands of pounds of damage and people have given up.”

Councillor Diane Hind, mayor of Bury St Edmunds, is keen to appoint a councillor as an allotment champion who will visit all sites and attend meetings, very much like the role undertaken by the late St Edmundsbury mayor Stefan Oliver.

She said: “It’s not that we haven’t had the conduit, this is just an extra bit that provides a link and I think it’s needed because so much these days is about communication, especially during Covid we lost that contact.

“We do have an issue with muntjac and the animals are not as healthy as they should be and are causing problems with the biodiversity of the River Lark.

“The town council looked at the issue before but it’s something we need to revisit and come to a conclusion.

“I’ve asked the clerk for quotes on the culling of muntjac – that is very much a last resort and not something we wanted to do.

“We have looked at fencing in the past and we did increase the fencing at Cotton Lane and the muntjac managed to jump it, so we will be talking to the district council and Bury Water Meadows.”

She added that it would be the allotment champion’s job to discuss the idea of having composting toilets with plot holders across all the sites.

“You’ve got to have people who are willing to maintain them. It is something that will be considered and hopefully we can get the views of all allotment holders,” she said.

What impact are deer having on the area?

A deer impact assessor has said that the deer problem at the Cotton Lane allotments and water meadows in Bury St Edmunds needs to be managed properly.

Rob Jackson, who volunteers for Bury Water Meadows Group as its deer adviser, said the deer were damaging the biodiversity of the area by stripping bark off trees and eating new shoots. This destruction to the layer of plants beneath the trees’ canopy, called the understorey, has an effect on insect life and habitat that sustains other animals.

He said: “The water meadows is a very small microhabitat. Groups like the water meadows group are doing such good work trying to promote biodiversity of the habitat but you’ve got a dominant species that is impacting that.

“No one is saying get rid of the deer completely because they are pretty established now – they’re almost native, but they should be managed so that they’re part of the biodiversity.”

In March, the group installed fences around small sections of the water meadows to show how the environment can recover when the muntjac are kept at bay. He and the group would like to show residents a comparison between the fenced off areas and areas which are not enclosed. He also thinks there should be a period of consultation.

“Ultimately, the deer numbers are going to continue to grow because muntjac are a species that can breed every seven months,” he added.

“My recommendation to the water meadows group is to reduce the numbers and then each year do a maintenance cull to keep numbers at a level which is sustainable.”

He said he’d noticed the condition of the deer was not as good as it could be as they were underweight and likely to be carrying parasites.