Good news from Titnore + stalls, tidy-ups and open day/tours

Fur­ther suc­cess for the inspir­ing Tit­nore Woods cam­paign­ers report­ed in todays press

Trees saved from axe
Sun­day 24th August 2008

A con­tro­ver­sial hous­ing devel­op­ment has been revised to save hun­dreds of trees.

Plans to build 875 homes on green fields at West Dur­ring­ton, Wor­thing, sparked fury among envi­ron­men­tal­ists when they were unveiled in 2003.

Around 275 trees would have been axed under the orig­i­nal pro­pos­als as Tit­nore Lane, a wind­ing coun­try road, was straight­ened.

But the pro­pos­al led to pro­test­ers set­ting set up a per­ma­nent tree camp in woods near Tit­nore Lane.

Now the West Dur­ring­ton Con­sor­tium, which con­sists of build­ing firms with a stake in the devel­op­ment, has revised its design so that only 75 trees will be chopped.

It said around 2,350 trees would also be plant­ed on the site.

The new plan­ning appli­ca­tion will be con­sid­ered by Wor­thing Bor­ough Coun­cil lat­er this year.

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That’s real­ly good news about the plans not to cut the trees, but real­ly it’s no time to cel­e­brate. This is by no means a vic­to­ry as the ques­tion of ecol­o­gy in the area goes far beyond the very small patch of wood­land that was plan­ning to be cut down. If these hous­es are built then the area is fucked.

That is also only look­ing at it from an eco­log­i­cal point of veiw, when real­ly this, as with oth­er hous­ing devel­op­ments goes far beyond the eco­log­i­cal issues. The build­ing of 600 unaf­ford­able hous­es (along with the 200 set aside for “key work­ers”) has many effects on the area, it is anoth­er act of gen­tri­fi­ca­tion, this bat­tle is about more then trees and nature (for some involved) but part of an anti cap­i­tal­ist strug­gle.

Not to men­tion it is fuck­ing point­less build­ing more hous­es to rot and be unsold, except that we have more to squat in 10 years time.

They are nice trees though, I would be lying if i would say it did­n’t make smile to think at least some them might remain.

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WHEN is a wood not a wood? When it has a road run­ning right through it!

The “new” plan­ning appli­ca­tion for the West Dur­ring­ton devel­op­ment in Wor­thing, West Sus­sex, is being sold to the Wor­thing pub­lic as a “response to pub­lic opin­ion” that will spare many of the Tit­nore trees.

But, like the orig­i­nal plans, it includes access roads that will cut right through the beau­ti­ful ancient wood­land cur­rent­ly occu­pied by the protest camp. A wood is no longer a viable bio-sys­tem with a road cut­ting it in half. Wildlife like dormice and crest­ed newts will not sur­vive in what will be no more than road­side clumps of trees sur­round­ed by tar­mac and exec­u­tive homes.

The devel­op­ers do not men­tion that the lack of road widen­ing was forced on them through legal pres­sure, rather than dreamt up out of the good­ness of their hearts. And they do not men­tion what would be like­ly to hap­pen in a few years’ time, when the mas­sive increase in traf­fic to the new estate and the mega-Tesco would no doubt be expect­ed to force a re-think on Tit­nore Lane for the usu­al “safe­ty” rea­sons.

Need­less to say, the bat­tle against the destruc­tion of our coun­try­side in West Dur­ring­ton goes on! We are urg­ing every­one to send in their let­ters of objec­tion to plan­ning appli­ca­tion WB/04/00040/OUT as soon as pos­si­ble — Octo­ber 9 is the very lat­est dead­line. Write to James Apple­ton, Devel­op­ment Con­trol Man­ag­er, at Wor­thing Bor­ough Coun­cil, Port­land House, Rich­mond Road, Wor­thing BN11 1LF or email planning@worthing.gov.uk

There will also be stalls in Wor­thing town cen­tre, the first being next Sat­ur­day, Sep­tem­ber 6, from 11am at Hold­er’s Cor­ner, Mon­tague Street (near Liv­er­pool Gar­dens).

And, of course, the camp is still going strong. There is, how­ev­er, an urgent need for repairs to the infra­struc­ture and defences, which have degrad­ed over the last cou­ple of years. Polyprop rope is bad­ly want­ed — as well as finan­cial con­tri­bu­tions.

If you can spare an hour or two to help at the camp, a tidy-up day is being held on Sun­day Sep­tem­ber 21, from 10am. And then on Sun­day Sep­tem­ber 28 there will be an Open Day, from 2pm. This will includ­ed guid­ed tours, show­ing where the roads and hous­ing are planned to destroy the area. Bring food to share.

More info: www.protectourwoodland.co.uk