October 29 — Vigil for Death of Democracy, Titnore Woods

A VIGIL for the “death of dem­co­ra­cy” is to be held on Sat­ur­day Octo­ber 29 by cam­paign­ers fight­ing to save ancient wood­land in Sus­sex.

The protest is to be staged from 2pm at the junc­tion of Tit­nore Lane, Dur­ring­ton, Wor­thing, and the A259 Lit­tle­hamp­ton Road.
The round­about, near North­brook Col­lege, is just five min­utes’ walk from Gor­ing rail­way sta­tion, served by direct trains from Brighton, Lon­don and Portsmouth.
In June Tory-run Wor­thing Bor­ough Coun­cil gave out­line per­mis­sion for a 875 home devel­op­ment plus road widen­ing, which will see more than 200 trees felled in one of the last patch­es of ancient wood­land on the coastal plain.
This was despite mas­sive pub­lic oppo­si­tion and years of peti­tion rais­ing, march­ing and meet­ings.
On Sep­tem­ber 4 pro­test­ers blocked busy Tit­nore Lane with a burn­ing effi­gy of John Prescott, whose depart­ment had just refused to call a pub­lic inquiry into the high­ly unpop­u­lar scheme, claim­ing it was not of region­al or nation­al sig­nif­i­cance.
The protest, togeth­er with a live­ly stage occu­pa­tion at the coun­cil meet­ing where the plans were passed, fea­tured on a recent edi­tion of ITV’s “Tonight With Trevor McDon­ald”.
Coun­cil offi­cers claim work on the site may now start in “ear­ly spring” but the cam­paign­ers have pledged to fight the bull­doz­ers every inch of the way and are appeal­ing for help from out­side Wor­thing.

POW (Pro­tect Our Wood­land)

SCAR (South Coast Against Road­build­ing)