Residents’ fury over woodland site work
ANGRY residents embroiled in a planning row close to a woodland in Kings Heath have asked police to investigate after bulldozers turned up and started tearing through it.
Heavy machinery and workers started clearing part of the wildlife site behind the Horseshoe pub in Alcester Road South, though planners are yet to rule on its future.
Neighbours and nature activists claim nesting birds, badgers, bats, newts and even deer have made their home in the woodland, which borders a stretch of the Stratford-uponAvon canal. A police wildlife officer has now been asked to investigate and a planning enforcement file opened on the case.
The developer, Drinkstop Ltd, wants to put up 12 homes at the site and has applied for planning permission, but angry residents say clearance work has got under way already. More than 500 residents are petitioning Birmingham City Council to halt the scheme.
Resident Jessica Lott, whose home borders the site, said the scheme would destroy a vital green space and wildlife corridor. She claimed heavy machinery and workers turned up on Monday, June 13, and spent several hours there.
None of the protected mature trees have been touched but smaller trees, bushes and undergrowth have been removed.
Drinkstop director Tarvinder Singh initially said the only work taking place was to prepare to take soil samples that had to be taken in multiple places on the site to check for contamination.
He confirmed there had been work done to tidy up the land to prepare for the soil analysis that included taking off the top soil and clearing brambles.
Mr Singh added: “That is all I am doing – removing the stingers (brambles) and the rubbish, there was a heap of tyres and other fly tipped rubbish, and we have to prepare for soil samples to be taken to see if the land is contaminated. We are not touching any of the protected trees on the site.”
He added: “If the residents are so upset about that, they are welcome to buy the land off me.”
Residents whose homes back on to the green space and woodland, located behind the Horseshoe pub are leading opposition. They are backed by wildlife enthusiasts and former councillor Barry Henley, who said the scheme would destroy ancient woodland, ruin the place for bats that live there and expose the new homes to flooding risk from the Chinn Brook.
In an email seen by the Post, the city council confirmed a trees officer had visited after a complaint from residents and confirmed none of the protected trees on the site had been removed.
“Whilst works do not appear to have been carried out to protected trees at the site, I have arranged for this to be logged as a planning enforcement case so that this can continue to be monitored,” the email added.
The site was located ‘within and adjacent to’ local wildlife sites and there are “concerns that due care and diligence has not been taken to the protected species within,” it said. “I have escalated this to the Wildlife Crime Division at West Midlands Police so the ecological implications of the works can be addressed correctly.”
Mr Singh’s company is seeking to build 12 homes on the half-a-hectare site. Plans have been submitted to the council which have yet to be determined by planners.
I have escalated this to the Wildlife Crime Division at West Midlands Police so the ecological implications of the works can be addressed correctly. Council email