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.

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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