Anger as popular woods felled
LOCALS are furious after a popular woods on the edge of Birmingham was chopped down – with landowners claiming it was for fire and safety reasons.
Manorial Woods in Sutton Coldfield has been felled, leaving just a perimeter of trees.
The wooded area, at the junction of Worcester Lane and Hillwood Road, is also known as Dead Man’s Wood, and was popular with ramblers, dog walkers and families. Now hundreds of trees lie stacked in piles of logs.
Landowners Sutton Coldfield Charitable Trust (SCCT) claimed the felling was needed to manage the land and prevent increased safety issues, including the risk of fire.
Sutton Roughley councillor Ewan Mackey (Con), backed residents who pointed out the irony of the felling during the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow.
One neighbour, who lives off Hill Village Road in nearby Mere Green and asked not to be named, said: “I go here with my granddaughters who have spent a lot of time playing in the woods. It was beautiful, and now it’s gone. I walked up the road and was gobsmacked. It was very pretty.”
The woods were felled last Tuesday with little warning – despite the charitable trust claiming a public consultation took place.
Cllr Mackey said an SCCT representative told him the public consultation was undertaken by the Forestry Commission, not the landowner, but SCCT was not aware of any objections.
He said he was not informed of the consultation.
Cllr Mackey claimed the wood was felled in ‘one job lot’ as a ‘cash crop’ after the trust obtained a logging licence.
He said wildlife habitats have been destroyed and raised fears the tree clearance was a precursor to the land being used for housing.
He said: “A number of residents are very, very upset about this.
“I understand there were buzzards nesting in the trees and all sorts of habitats around the trees.
“I understand the Forestry Commission conducted some kind of public consultation, but I haven’t met anyone who saw that and there were no legal obstacles to knocking this down. But it’s still very upsetting and very worrying.”
In a statement, Sutton Coldfield Charitable Trust said: “Having obtained specialist advice, the decision was taken by the trustees to harvest the current crop of pine trees as part of the ongoing management of their land holdings and replace them with broadleaved deciduous trees.
“Four weeks’ public consultation took place ahead of the felling licence being granted.
“Over recent years, there have been a number of issues with localised fires and fly tipping. The trustees were advised that the current crop of Corsican Pine has reached its full potential and will go into decline in the future, causing potential increased safety issues.
“It will become a greater fire hazard due to the lack of understory, vegetation and plants that normally grow under the canopy of woodland or forest. The woodland, as it exists, provides little or no benefit to wildlife.
“The site will be restocked with predominantly UK grown hardwoods – broadleaved trees – with an intimate mix of conifers to aid the establishment of the crop. These will continue to sequester carbon for decades to come and provide better habitats for a wider range of plants and wildlife.”