Tree protest called off after Network Rail concessions

More than 100 pro­test­ers held a demon­stra­tion on the Cromwell Road rail­way embank­ment in an attempt to halt the start of work to remove trees, which Net­work Rail claims could cause insta­bil­i­ty on the track.

The pro­test­ers, many of whom were local res­i­dents, are con­cerned that the works would take place dur­ing the bird-breed­ing sea­son when many are nest­ing in the trees.

A five-hour long protest, dur­ing which three female pro­test­ers in their 50s and 60s chained them­selves to a tree on the embank­ment, start­ed at 7.30am with cam­paign­ers bran­dish­ing plac­ards bear­ing slo­gans includ­ing “stop the slaugh­ter of wildlife”.

The demon­stra­tion was called off after Net­work Rail informed cam­paign­ers in writ­ing that it was halt­ing the works until Sep­tem­ber, after the bird breed­ing sea­son has fin­ished.

‘Claim­ing vic­to­ry’

The state­ment by Net­work Rail ful­fils two of the pro­test­ers’ three demands. One cam­paign­er said that they would now con­cen­trate on per­suad­ing Net­work Rail to agree to their remain­ing demand, for bet­ter con­sul­ta­tion with res­i­dents and the use of tru­ly inde­pen­dent con­ser­va­tion experts.

“Whit­stable peo­ple are now claim­ing this as a vic­to­ry,” said Julie Wass­mer, who was among the three who had chained them­selves to the tree. “Today, Net­work Rail are now aware that the peo­ple of Whit­stable are not back­ing off.”

The rail infra­struc­ture oper­a­tor planned to start remov­ing the trees because of con­cerns about sub­si­dence caused by their roots.

An inde­pen­dent ecol­o­gist car­ried out an assess­ment this morn­ing on behalf of Net­work Rail to deter­mine how many birds’ nests were in the affect­ed trees.

Fiona Tay­lor, Net­work Rail’s route man­ag­ing direc­tor for Kent, said: “After a thor­ough inspec­tion with an inde­pen­dent ecol­o­gist, the work to remove select­ed trees along this stretch of rail­way has been post­poned owing to the sus­pect­ed num­ber of nest­ing birds.

“Because this work is essen­tial for the future safe­ty of the rail­way, we will return at a lat­er date to com­plete it once the nests have been vacat­ed. Res­i­dents will receive a min­i­mum of 10 days’ notice before the start date and we will car­ry out a full inspec­tion before the work begins.”

‘Use­ful reminder’

The trees had already been giv­en a tem­po­rary stay of exe­cu­tion after plans to remove them in April were put on hold.

Mark Thomas, an RSPB inves­ti­ga­tions offi­cer, said: “The attempts by Net­work Rail to clear track­side veg­e­ta­tion from a line in Kent is a use­ful reminder to every­one that the nests of all wild birds are pro­tect­ed by law dur­ing the nest­ing sea­son.

“Thanks to protests the RSPB, Kent and British Trans­port Police, and not least local cam­paign­ers, Net­work Rail are aware of this.

We now trust they will plan their track clear­ance work out­side the bird-nest­ing sea­son where they will be able to car­ry out essen­tial work with­out caus­ing envi­ron­men­tal dam­age and spark­ing the out­rage of com­mu­ni­ties who care about their local wildlife.”