Occupy Firgrove: Destruction of the trees

26 July 2013 Wednes­day morn­ing, police, pri­vate secu­ri­ty, fencers, tree sur­geons, arrived to end the occu­pa­tion of Fir­grove Green and destroy the trees.

The plan­ners lied, said the trees were in poor state of health. The trees had to go, as they showed the plan­ners lied. Green space, the only green space in town, ear­marked for destruc­tion for an 80-bed­room Pre­mier Inn hotel.

Green Frontage: The town has an abun­dance of green edges, includ­ing in those spaces adja­cent to main roads. This char­ac­ter­is­tic is a pos­i­tive asset for the town, and enhances envi­ron­men­tal qual­i­ty. — Sup­ple­men­tary Plan­ning Guid­ance for Farn­bor­ough town cen­tre

Last month a plan­ning appli­ca­tion was passed to demol­ish three local shops, and an Indi­an restau­rant at Fir­grove Parade in Farn­bor­ough. This would also ren­der home­less the peo­ple liv­ing in the flats above, flats that are in very poor state of repair.

 http://keithpp.wordpress.com/2013/06/20/tragedy-for-firgrove-parade/

The plan­ning com­mit­tee were told it was not of their con­cern they can go some­where else, anoth­er town maybe.

Adja­cent to the site a grassy green with trees, crossed by pub­lic foot­paths. Used by local peo­ple for decades. It has proven pop­u­lar in the last few weeks, as peo­ple seek out the shade of the trees.

Fir­grove Green is the only green space in the town cen­tre. It is ear­marked for destruc­tion for a 80-bed­room Pre­mier Inn hotel.

This is what in Farn­bor­ough is jok­ing­ly called town cen­tre regen­er­a­tion, destroy green space, cut down trees, destroy local busi­ness­es. George Orwell would be proud of this use of newspeak.

At the plan­ning meet­ing, the com­mit­tee was whipped into line by the head of plan­ning. The com­mit­tee was told the trees were in a poor state of health. And just in case they had not got the mes­sage, they were told there were no plan­ning grounds to reject the appli­ca­tion, and if they did, it would be lost at appeal.

Sur­prise, sur­prise, the trees are in a healthy state, noth­ing like they were described to the plan­ning com­mit­tee.

Two weeks ago, tree sur­geons arrived to cut down the trees. Local peo­ple alert­ed to what was hap­pen­ing descend­ed on the site. The tree sur­geons man­aged to cut down three trees, an apple and two flow­er­ing cher­ries. All three healthy trees. Even the tree sur­geons tasked to cut down the trees, were forced to admit, these were healthy trees.

http://keithpp.wordpress.com/2013/07/12/activists-save-trees-at-firgrove-parade/

Since then, the local com­mu­ni­ty has been on high alert. They sus­pect­ed the greedy devel­op­er Bride Hall would not give up. They were proven cor­rect.

On Sun­day, Knight Secu­ri­ty start­ed try­ing to remove cars under the false threat peo­ple would be fined. This could only mean one thing, Bride Hall want­ed to bring in a lor­ry to fence the site, pos­si­bly even bring in a bull­doz­er or a dig­ger to trash the site.

Before 7pm Wednes­day morn­ing, Knight Secu­ri­ty turned up mob hand­ed. But they were too late, local peo­ple were already on the green. A large num­ber of police turned up, includ­ing riot police. The police were film­ing pro­test­ers, pro­test­ers film­ing the police.

The tree sur­geons turned up. They drove a truck at high speed onto the site, putting pro­test­ers at seri­ous risk of injury, and stopped very close to pro­test­ers. Fencers turned up and start­ed to fence in the pro­test­ers. Passers by, so angry at what they saw hap­pen­ing, joined the pro­test­ers on the site.

A woman claim­ing to be an agent act­ing for the devel­op­er, ordered every­one off site. She refused to iden­ti­fy who she was. Inspec­tor Justin Browne of Hamp­shire Police, then asked every­one to leave. If they refused, he would have arrest­ed and charged for aggra­vat­ed tres­pass. At this point, every­one decid­ed to leave, as noth­ing was going to be served by being arrest­ed. Every­one though still remained but out­side the fenced off area. A group of kids out­side the fenced off area, on a pub­lic right of way, were threat­ened with arrest. A report in the Farn­bor­ough News that pro­test­ers were evict­ed from the site not true.

A pub­lic right of way was unlaw­ful­ly blocked. The police were asked to deal with this. They refused.

Bride Hall has not yet been issued with plan­ning con­sent, and yet they have start­ed work by clear­ing the site and fenc­ing it off. In a press release, they said they would not be start­ing work until 2014. They told the local rag, they would not be start­ing for three years.

 http://keithpp.wordpress.com/2013/07/21/firgrove-parade-bride-hall-press-release/

Why start now? It can only be to destroy the evi­dence of healthy trees on the site.

Kei­th Hol­land, head of plan­ning at the Rot­ten Bor­ough of Rush­moor, was asked to serve enforce­ment action, as no plan­ning con­sent had been issued to Bride Hall.

His response:

‘Hav­ing vis­it­ed the site ear­li­er today, I saw no sign of any devel­op­ment com­menc­ing on site. Tem­po­rary fenc­ing had been erect­ed to secure the site for health and safe­ty rea­sons, whilst con­trac­tors removed trees from the site. The trees are on pri­vate land and are not cov­ered by a tree preser­va­tion order. The removal of the trees does not con­sti­tute the start of devel­op­ment and no plan­ning breach has occurred, as far as I could see.’

He claims not part of the work. The plans show a 80-bed­room Pre­mier Inn hotel on the green where the trees are grow­ing. Or is Kei­th Hol­land agree­ing with the pro­test­ers, that this work was to destroy the evi­dence that he bla­tant­ly lied to the com­mit­tee?

He also states no TPOS on the trees. And why are there no TPOs? Because the local tree offi­cer who seems inca­pable of dif­fer­en­ti­at­ing a healthy tree from an unhealthy tree, refused to serve TPOs. And who does the tree offi­cer work for? Why none oth­er than the head of plan­ning. And like his boss, he is a liar. He claimed in an e‑mail, a copy of which was sent to his boss, he could not serve TPOs as plan­ning con­sent had been issued. Plan­ning con­sent has not been issued,

Thus we go round and round in cir­cles.

He also con­tra­dicts the tem­po­rary bor­ough solic­i­tor Jere­my Rosen who wrote:

‘Your request for an emer­gency Tree Preser­va­tion Order is not­ed.  How­ev­er, I have to inform you that the Coun­cil has no inten­tion of mak­ing any such TPO. 
 
The rea­son for this is that the pro­posed works to the trees have already been con­sid­ered by the Council’s Devel­op­ment Con­trol Com­mit­tee as part of the wider plan­ning appli­ca­tion for the rede­vel­op­ment of Fir­gove Parade.  As you know, the Com­mit­tee resolved to grant con­sent to the pro­posed devel­op­ment, which includes the removal of the exist­ing trees.
 
There­fore, hav­ing fol­lowed the prop­er process, the Coun­cil has already decid­ed to per­mit the removal of the exist­ing trees.  It would there­fore be inap­pro­pri­ate and indeed pre­serve for the Coun­cil to now make a TPO which would effec­tive­ly reverse its ear­li­er deci­sion regard­ing the trees and make it impos­si­ble to imple­ment the plan­ning per­mis­sion.’

One says cut­ting down the trees noth­ing to do with the devel­op­ment. The oth­er says TPOs can­not be served on the trees as would stop the devel­op­ment going ahead.

But this is what hap­pens when you weave a web of lies, the web unrav­els and it is very dif­fi­cult to keep your sto­ry straight.

The tree sur­geons have cut all but two of the trees down.

They were expect­ed to return in the morn­ing, but no sign of them either yes­ter­day or today.

Look­ing at the tree stumps and logs these were healthy trees that have been cut down.

One tree has been spared because it has a nest­ing pigeon. It is an offence under the Wildlife and Coun­try­side Act, to dis­turb a nest­ing bird, its nest, its young or its eggs

Local peo­ple are extreme­ly angry at what is hap­pen­ing. The one excep­tion, a pathet­ic and rather unpleas­ant racist troll with an unhealthy inter­est in pic­tures of chil­dren, who if he keeps harass­ing peo­ple, under var­i­ous fake IDs, will soon find him­self served a Harass­ment Order. The only oth­er, coun­cil­lors and their offi­cials who act in the inter­est of devel­op­ers and Big Busi­ness, not the local com­mu­ni­ty, local busi­ness­es.

The fol­low­ing night the Coun­cil met behind closed doors to dis­cuss the Rush­moor Cor­rup­tion Plan, oops sor­ry Rush­moor Cor­po­rate Plan, it states how much they val­ue green space. There must be a hid­den clause: Unless it is cov­et­ed by a devel­op­er, then our tree offi­cer will con­demn all healthy trees and we will rub­ber-stamp your plan­ning appli­ca­tion.

For the peo­ple of Farn­bor­ough, this was their Gezi Park moment, as in Istan­bul, a green area in town, the only green area, being destroyed for devel­op­ment, by a cor­rupt coun­cil in bed with devel­op­ers.

Local peo­ple are now call­ing for a boy­cott of Pre­mier Inn and Cos­ta, both owned by Whit­bread.