Locals angry over plans to remove beloved geese from pond

By Jack Fifield

Residents of a sleepy Yorkshire village have had their feathers ruffled over plans to remove a pair of beloved geese from a local pond due to "health and safety" concerns.

White goose Lucy Goose has been sharing Townend Pond, located off the village High Street in Stillington, North Yorkshire, with local ducks for two years.

Recently, Lucy – who is owned by local resident Molly Dickman – even found love with a male Chinese goose brought to keep her company.

But residents in the Domesday village have been left shocked after parish councillors decided the geese have to be removed over road safety concerns.

At a Stillington Parish Council meeting held on July 2, councillors decided that the paired geese would be offered back to their owners or re-homed at a different pond ‘in the interests of road safety’.

A petition to keep the geese has already received more than 1,163 – more than the entire population of the 828-person village, which is located around 10 miles north of York.

Retired field hand Betty North, 91, has lived three cottages away from the pond since 1956.

She’s one of a growing number of residents frustrated with the council’s decision.

Betty said: “These geese are more recent, but we’ve had ducks for years and years, and wild geese of course.

“We tried very hard to get some geese on the pond, and this is what we did.

“We’ve got one, and it wanted a mate, so some folks went to a lot of bother to find a mate.

“Then it’s come to all this, they want to get rid of it.

“I just couldn’t believe it – to think we’ve had these for years and years, I cannot believe it really.

“Let’s hope we do some good and we can keep them.

“Everybody loves them as far as I know.

“There was a big crowd here the other day to try to do some good and to keep them.

“I just hope it all goes and we can keep them for years to come.”

Gelda Churton, wife of parish councillor Robert Churton, who authored a report on the geese for the parish council meeting, said he would not be offering an opinion on the situation.

She said: “Our thoughts are absolutely our thoughts, but as he’s a parish councillor, he has to go with what their thoughts are.

“Quite honestly we have been feeding those geese for the last almost two years, and we looked after Gurty, who’s known now as Lucy, the person who owned her acknowledged she was just left there all through the winter by itself.

“We’re very fond of them.”

Leighanne Smith, admin of the ‘Save The Stillington Geese!’ Facebook page, wrote: “We have learned that the parish council has decided to remove the geese without consulting the villagers.

“The white goose has lived here peacefully for at least two years, sharing the pond with both duck families and moorhens. It was a sad time when she initially lost her gander but she is quite happily settled with a new man, the Chinese Goose, and they are a bonded pair.

“They recently laid a clutch of eggs but these were unexpectedly removed. Please don’t let our geese be removed too.

“We respectfully ask our parish councillors to rethink their decision and enter into meaningful discussions with the villagers on the future of the Stillington geese.”

North Yorkshire councillor Malcolm Taylor, who is listed present at the meeting, said he had left the meeting after updating them on North Yorkshire Council matters.

He said: “I’m not getting involved with that at all, it’s a parish council issue. It’s purely a local matter, it’s not an issue for North Yorkshire in any way, shape or form.

“I haven’t been involved. I do an update and I leave, I don’t stay for the parish matters.”

Stillington Parish Council did not respond to a request for comment.