A hill to die on

One of our local SSI's in under threat from developers who want to cut down most of the trees that are home to endangered Red Squirrels and full of lots of other wildlife. They want to build a holiday park with a load of lodges, gym, sauna, poll and restaurant, they very kindly say that local swill be able to use these facilities without having to stay at the park, most locals kindly say words with lots of FF's to the developers. Not only will this development destroy a local amneity thats also a big draw with tourists wanting to watch the wildlife, but there's been no thought for local infrastructure. Our roads are already at breaking point, and with the port at Holyhead becoming a freeport roads will be overwhelmed. What about water and sewerage, waste and the quality of life for those who already live here? The people behind this always say it will bring jobs, but what kind of jobs? Will they be proper, well paid and permanent jobs, or will they be seasonal, zero-hours and minimum wage? We have plenty of those already and local people are already priced out, we have problems attracting workers anyway for the existing businesses serving the tourism industry.

Like many local people I intend to protest if they get to the stage of chopping trees down, I know we probably won't stop it, that we will end up arrested, and all that goes with it, we may end up physically injured too. But this sort of thing has to stop, this is my hill and choose to die on it.

Parents
  • One of our local SSI's in under threat from developers

    With the government pushing for building on the green belt now this is most likely going to go ahead.

    While it sucks, it is "progress" and it is only going to accellerate until most green areas are gone in urban areas.

    They will deal with the load on services and amenities after everything is build - once there are lots of traffic jams, pot holes, low water pressure etc then they will increase council tax to make you all pay for the upgrades and you have to wait then sit through the inconvenience of months or years of road works.

    The classic way for developers to get away with this is to promise counsellors a seat on the board of the company when their term in office ends - it happens so often there really should be a law against it.

    Since it is all about the money for them, is right that a carefully thought out process of financially crippling protest is the way to make them back out when they are way over budget and not even broke ground. Just do it in a way that you don't get caught.

  • This isn't building houses on the green belt or anything like that, this is building yet another holiday park, national government has nothing to do with it, nor even the Sennedd. This is a purely local descision, despite the opposition to it including King Charles, when he was Prince of Wales, WIlliam Prince of Wales, Sir David Attenborough, Chris Packham and many others. The site is already a local ammenity, one that dosen't push local people to the margins.

    There have already been some acts of direct action, GPS locators have been put in the ground near trees that will be felled, have been oiked out and chucked in the sea. I'm sure if they go ahead with it, it will turn into a costly, high profile mess.

Reply
  • This isn't building houses on the green belt or anything like that, this is building yet another holiday park, national government has nothing to do with it, nor even the Sennedd. This is a purely local descision, despite the opposition to it including King Charles, when he was Prince of Wales, WIlliam Prince of Wales, Sir David Attenborough, Chris Packham and many others. The site is already a local ammenity, one that dosen't push local people to the margins.

    There have already been some acts of direct action, GPS locators have been put in the ground near trees that will be felled, have been oiked out and chucked in the sea. I'm sure if they go ahead with it, it will turn into a costly, high profile mess.

Children
  • This was all set in motion long before a Labour government came to power in the summer. There has been a recent high court case and protest has been going on for years. Our previous MP, (a Tory) refused to get involved with it as she didn't want to clash with a matter that she saw as purely one for the local council.

  • national government has nothing to do with it

    What I was referring to there was the government set the laws and guidelines on planning regulations which the local councils then enact.

    The new government have liften many restrictions on building anything on a lot of areas that were previously protected because of pressures from business and housing demand.

  • Wage total war, or just let them do it.

    Waging total war if done intelligently doesn't need to be violent, but you do need to be determined as a group and talk regualrly.

    It costs about £100 to file a case in the local court. The law can be used at the very least to force a tactical or strategic pause in their activities, so if you have access to a law student, maybe via zoom, you can get access to the law and figure out what sort of case you need to bring. Sometimes you don't need to win, just the aggravation of being a defendant weakens the opponent enough so that one of your other tactics actually brings them down. 

    Remember that a lock that has been treated adequately with superglue will keep both YOU and also the operator from using a piece of equipment. Especially if after the door lock has been defeated it still can't be started. 

    You might need to learn about, and acquire some "caltrops". Anyone with a grinder and a welder can make them easily enough.. Loud and visual protests should eb a distraction to focus attention there whilst you do crippling tings here...

    Make it uneconomic and slow to do anything. And stop them felling the trees for goodness sake.

    Trees reduce CO2!!!