📷 Jessie Mellor
North Staffs Green Party has given its backing to a campaign by residents in Bradwell Newcastle-under-Lyme to protect 120 trees from being cut down by a developer.
An application has been made by Seddon Homes to build 85 houses on land to the North of Bradwell Hospital, as part of the plans the trees on the North and West sides of the site will be felled.
Residents are concerned this will have a negative impact on wildlife in the area, Jessie Mellor who lives on Knype Way near to the site said, “Birds and Bats use those trees for nesting and roosting, along with foxes and other small mammals in the foliage who make their homes and rear their young”.
The 2019 ‘State of Nature’ report produced for the Wildlife Trusts identified a continuation of the ongoing decline in wildlife in the UK. It showed that 41% of wildlife species have declined and that 15% are threatened with becoming extinct in the UK.
Fragmentation, often the outcome when green spaces in urban areas are developed can result in degradation of what little survives with a serious knock-on effect for wildlife in the area, increasing pace at which biodiversity declines.
A spokesperson for North Staffs Green Party said, “every urban green space is precious, they have a vital role to play in maintaining biodiversity which it under severe stress due to poorly thought-out development and in promoting the health and wellbeing of communities”.
Residents in Knype Way and the surrounding area are calling on Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council not to approve the landscaping proposals for the site, without which construction cannot begin.
📷 Jessie Mellor
They want to see consideration to issues including loss of privacy were the trees to be felled, noise from the nearby main road and the ecological impact of the loss of such a significant wildlife habitat.
An assessment of the trees on the site conducted for developers Seddon Homes shows the presence of several mature trees and that all the trees on the site are suitable for retention.
Campaigners are now carrying out their own survey of the site to establish the locations used by wildlife. Jessie Mellor said, “The woodland and tree line should be retained, protected, and enhanced within the proposed scheme not cut down and destroyed”.
North Staffs Green Party are supporting several campaigns to protect threatened green spaces in the Newcastle-under-Lyme and Stoke-on-Trent including Keele Golf Course and Berryhill Fields. The Spokesperson said, “we are determined to support the residents in Bradwell and other parts of the area who are seeing the green spaces they value so highly put under threat by irresponsible development”.