Peel Holdings cowboys butcher Salford trees

12th August 2013

PEEL SLAUGHTERS SILVER BIRCH TREES AS SALFORD PEOPLE POWER RESISTS

‘As the trees went down, our den went down and all our child­hood mem­o­ries were gone’ Olivia Cum­mings

Hor­ri­fied res­i­dents launched a spon­ta­neous demo last Fri­day as Peel Hold­ings trashed huge sil­ver birch trees on the field behind their homes in Booth­stown, with no warn­ing and no health and safe­ty mea­sures in place.

The police were called, and Sal­ford Coun­cil hur­ried­ly slapped preser­va­tion orders on the trees but by that time most were already felled… “Birch­field was named after these birch­es and they’ve just butchered them” says res­i­dent Michelle Baglin

“It’s noth­ing less than we’ve come to expect from Peel” Coun­cil­lor Gar­ri­do

“I was wear­ing my Sal­ford City Reds top and it has Peel on there as a spon­sor” recalls Olivia Cum­mings “I was walk­ing about with my hand over it as much as I could; I was so embar­rassed and so ashamed for wear­ing it…”

Olivi­er is just one of loads of local young peo­ple who have grown up play­ing around the huge sil­ver birch­es in the field at the back of hous­es on Birch­field Dri­ve in Booth­stown. For them, both the field and the dens built near the trees are mag­i­cal places that have spanned gen­er­a­tions. Then, last Fri­day, it all came crash­ing down as Peel Hold­ings sensed a quick buck to be made.

“We used to play in the dens behind the trees, and, as the trees went down, our den went down and all our child­hood mem­o­ries were gone” adds Olivi­er “We can’t go in there any more.”

Her friend, Oliv­er Ward, also wit­nessed Peel Hold­ings’ eco poli­cies at first hand…

“I was stood right in front of it and there were loads of sil­ver birch­es, some six­ty feet high, com­ing down, I was shocked” he says “Our child­hood just crashed. They did­n’t even put fences up, only when they knew we were going to tell. They lied to the police as well – it’s dis­gust­ing. I video‑d it on my broth­er’s phone.”

Peel Hold­ings might have got away with it com­plete­ly, but for the pesky kids and res­i­dents who organ­ised a spon­ta­neous protest on the field, com­plete with ban­ners.

“There was tree felling with no noti­fi­ca­tion to res­i­dents or notices on the entrances to pro­tect chil­dren, so we all head­ed on to the field and asked them to stop but they refused point blank” says res­i­dent Angela Hilton “We start­ed try­ing to block them, the police were called and then they did stop and promised not to fell any more trees. But ten min­utes lat­er, after the police had gone, they car­ried on. We filmed about half a dozen trees being felled and we went out again, then more police came…”

Dur­ing the events, local coun­cil­lor, Robin Gar­ri­do, was try­ing to get an emer­gency tree preser­va­tion order from Sal­ford Coun­cil but by the time it arrived, most of the dam­age had been done. Coun­cil­lor Gar­ri­do says he was ‘appalled’…

“On Fri­day I got a phone call from one of the res­i­dents say­ing they were up in arms that Peel Hold­ings had got con­trac­tors felling trees on the site” he says “I got in touch with the Coun­cil which checked out the sit­u­a­tion and advised that there were no preser­va­tion orders on the trees and that, because the site was­n’t in a con­ser­va­tion area, there was noth­ing they could do, which was quite right.

“I came down to the site, saw what was hap­pen­ing, spoke to the Coun­cil again and they agreed that we could get an emer­gency tree preser­va­tion order” he adds “That was at 4:45pm,and at about 5:45pm an offi­cer of the Coun­cil came down to the site with the preser­va­tion orders, which means that they can’t remove any more trees with­out plan­ning per­mis­sion.

“We’re a bit con­cerned because we did agree with the con­trac­tors and Peel pri­or to that being served that no fur­ther trees would be felled that day” he explains “Imme­di­ate­ly after I left and the res­i­dents went back to their hous­es they felled a fur­ther six trees which is absolute­ly dis­gust­ing. I think it’s appalling that a com­pa­ny should behave in that sort of way but to be hon­est it’s noth­ing less than we’ve come to expect from Peel.”

Res­i­dents believe that the motive for the tree slaugh­ter is the prepa­ra­tion of the green site for build­ing hous­es. In 2004 there was a plan­ning appli­ca­tion sub­mit­ted for hous­ing which was reject­ed on the grounds of wildlife habi­tat destruc­tion amongst oth­er things. Now the wildlife is being dri­ven out.

Res­i­dents told the Sal­ford Star that, in 2004, Peel Hold­ings owned half the field, while Sal­ford Coun­cil owned the oth­er half – yet when the Coun­cil was check­ing into the tree preser­va­tion order last week, appar­ent­ly the site is whol­ly owned now by Peel.

“We want to know when the Coun­cil sold it” says Angela “If they sold it after 2004 when they knew Peel want­ed to build on it then, obvi­ous­ly, that’s naughty. There are a lot of hous­es around here and the only places chil­dren can go to play is either over the East Lancs Road, which is a haz­ard, or the main road which is a dan­ger. There’s always kids on here. This is the only green space they have.”

Last night, around forty local res­i­dents attend­ed a meet­ing at Booth­stown Library and vowed to car­ry on the fight against Peel.

“We don’t trust Peel Hold­ings, and we’ve got some­one on look­out so they don’t cut any more trees down when they’re ‘tidy­ing up’ ” says res­i­dent Michelle Baglin “We’re all work­ing class on here, and we look for­ward to tak­ing the kids on the field. They do have a good life but Peel don’t care. If we came down to their hous­es and ripped the trees out of their gar­dens I’m sure they would be kick­ing off like we are.

“Birch­field was named after these birch­es and they’ve just butchered them” she adds “Well, the pub­lic is not going to stay qui­et any longer. The mums are going to speak up and car­ry on fight­ing for our chil­dren.”