Eithinog and Brewery Fields victory (Bangor, Wales)

BREWERS TROOP

North Wales cam­paign­ers who have fought a four­teen year bat­tle to stop plans to devel­op a 50 acre coun­cil-owned wildlife haven and com­mu­ni­ty space on the edge of Ban­gor, Gwynedd are near­ing vic­to­ry.

Rare fun­gi found recent­ly at Eithinog and Brew­ery Fields by a vet­er­an of two camps evict­ed vio­lent­ly by police in 1998 (See SchNEWS 172/173 & 178) have final­ly brought Gwynedd Coun­cil’s pro­posed hous­ing plans to a halt. This turn­about comes short­ly after their devel­op­ment had been giv­en the green light by the UDP Inquiry Inspec­tor last Novem­ber. Cam­paign­ers are now await­ing a for­mal announce­ment by the coun­cil, which would mean 83% of the orig­i­nal area being pre­served, hope­ful­ly to be man­aged as a Nature Reserve by a local com­mu­ni­ty trust.

The long cam­paign, con­duct­ed var­i­ous­ly by Gwynedd and Môn Earth First! in con­junc­tion with and oth­er groups and the local com­mu­ni­ty, has seen many twists and turns: direct action against the coun­cil and devel­op­ers, com­mu­ni­ty march­es, nature events, Ban­gor coun­cil­lors giv­ing evi­dence to under­mine res­i­dents’ town green appli­ca­tions, and use of vio­lence by North Wales police to break lock-ons and a bull­doz­er to evict a tun­nel. This cul­mi­nat­ed in a 1998 Gwynedd Coun­cil com­mit­ment to estab­lish a nature reserve being reversed in 2004 and the rein­state­ment of large-scale hous­ing plans.

How­ev­er, com­mu­ni­ty anger at this last coun­cil U‑turn per­suad­ed it to agree to con­duct an eco­log­i­cal appraisal of the site — which found that much of Eithinog & Brew­ery Fields crossed the grass­land fun­gi SSSI thresh­old. In con­se­quence, a large part of the pro­posed devel­op­ment was dropped in 2005, although sev­en acres of eco­log­i­cal­ly sen­si­tive grass­land rec­om­mend­ed for con­ser­va­tion were still ear­marked for hous­ing. The coun­cil’s own bio­di­ver­si­ty team acknowl­edged that its devel­op­ment would jeop­ar­dise the integri­ty of the whole site.

The Coun­try­side Coun­cil for Wales has now stepped in, and although some fur­ther devel­op­ment will hap­pen, it says it should be con­fined to five acres of degrad­ed land. All the open space used for gen­er­a­tions by the sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ty is to be pre­served and the land pos­si­bly trans­ferred to a local trust, who — if this comes about — would man­age it in con­junc­tion with con­ser­va­tion bod­ies. A big SchNEWS thumbs up to the peo­ple con­cerned for their efforts in sav­ing Eithinog & Brew­ery Fields to be a com­mu­ni­ty asset for future gen­er­a­tions.

* For a cam­paign his­to­ry les­son, see -

http://www.eithinog.org.uk/history.html