King’s Norton residents protest after land owner axes woodland trees

Mar 14 2009 by Paul Suart, Birmingham Mail

ANGRY Birmingham residents are up in arms after a property developer cut down trees in a woodland which they say is a wildlife haven.

People in Green Acres Road and Glendene Crescent, King’s Norton, discovered more than 50 mature oak trees had been scythed down in a two-acre nature reserve which separates the culs-de-sac.

Homeowners are worried that Freefield Investments, which bought the land for £12,000 in an auction about 18 months ago, plan to build houses on the site, which they say houses badger, fox, field mice and bat habitats.

Mark Whitehouse, of Green Acres Road, said: “I got home from work and someone had cut down lots of tress.

“One of the workers said they were going to clear the site for development.

“We fear they are trying to destroy the site so that it is not a nature reserve, so they can get planing permission to build there.

“The view from our garden has been destroyed.

“The Birmingham Mail tried to contact Freefield Investments and visited its registered office in Hatfield, near Worcester. The firm’s accountant would not divulge the company’s contact details under client confidentiality regulations.

By cutting less than five square metres of unprotected trees and in doing it before the start of March, it appears the firm has done nothing wrong, according to the Forestry Commission which has visited the site.