Category: Action Reports

Digger trashed in action relating to 25 mature trees being felled in Manchester

A property developer, who plans to build on the Loretto College Playing Fields, got a visit from upset local people early on Tuesday 29th July. Around 25 mature trees on the playing fields have recently been destroyed and a large JCB digger has started ground works.

Local people despair at the useless politicians who get voted in for 3-5 years, then enclose green spaces, close swimming baths and sell off schools and playing fields. These are all sold to private developers, who are only there to make money for their shareholders, not our local community.

People broke into the large digger using cutters and doused the cab, electronics and computer in paraffin. Then standing back, threw in the spark. Damage has been estimated at up to £100,000.

Hopefully insurance companies and contractors get the message. Developers who destroy our community green spaces, close footpaths and kill our trees, are not welcome.

It is sad that new diggers only take around a month to build, mature trees take a life time.

======================

There has been a group set up by local residents in response to this unexpected felling of mature trees.

—extract—-
We are a collective mainly based in Hulme but with a network of organisations supporting our cause from all over the city. Our aim is to halt to further expansion of the construction in Birley Fields as well as to activley protect our green spaces that we are sadly loosing by the day.
Through non-violent, peaceful but direct action we will prevail.
Rally interested people to this egroup and we can start the resistance to the destruction of our area, stand up for the environment which we so desperatley need and prove that people power is all we need to make a difference.

Simple peat action – DIY at your local DIY – while we can still breathe…

Before the last May Bank Holiday weekend, a time when demand for peat at garden centres is high, some were visited throughout Greater Manchester – bags were slashed and stickers stuck.

Save our bogs!

For more background info, www.peatalert.org.uk

As part of the need to refocus our actions on other companies like these and not just Scotts, Bolton Fell peat stripping site was visited on Sunday 14 December 2002. The works was very busy but the fields were wet and empty. Drainpipes were blocked with bags of peat, a footbridge was pushed into a drainage ditch and a small railway bridge was dismantled.

– from longer background article at http://www.eco-action.org/dod/no10/peat.htm

In November more vehicles, were sabotaged at Solway Moss, this time about 15 peat cutters, owned by L&P Peat, while 3 more were trashed at Bolton Fell, owned by William Sinclair. L&P Peat’s stock of peat was also visited that night with about a quarter of their stock slashed. Both targets are expanding their role in the peat industry as other players back out, and both companies are fighting efforts to protect their sites on environmental grounds.

Both of these sites are candidate SAC* sites, but the companies are both threatening to take the government to judicial review if they are submitted. These actions were carried out because of the companies’ refusal to allow SAC status to proceed and because both companies are expanding in the peat industry.

*SAC glossary & further info – see http://www.eco-action.org/dod/no10/peat.htm