Petition to get Bristol City Council to make Grove Woods a Nature Reserve!

[zail]

If you care about wild areas within our cities please read on...

Recently a new owner took over Grove Woods, Snuff Mills in Bristol. This area is a haven for wildlife in the middle of the city with the river Frome running through the woods. Otters and Kingfishers have been seen here, along with Bats, Herons and a wide range of other wildlife. The owner has applied to Bristol City Council to cut down some of the trees next to the wall by the road and this application has been allowed. Local residents fear that this is the thin end of the wedge and that the new owner wants to develop the area. You can find out more buy googling for Snuff Mills Action Group or reading this article in the Bristol Evening Post:

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The Action Group have set up a petition which aims to persuade the Council to buy the land and turn it into a Nature Reserve - it can be found at:

Bristol Petitioning

I really value this area as it is near where I work and is a lovely calming place to go for a walk at lunchtime.

Thanks for any support you are able to give

[zail]

There has been a new development on the Grove Woods site - the landowner has now fenced off the land closing access to a wood that has been open access for the last 100 or so years Please help the campaign if you can.

Thanks

[thes3raph1m]

contact the new owner and ask him/her what his intentions are... just to clarify

it may be that the trees he removed were dangerous, and he fenced it in because he can... but thats the extent of his plans... which tbh is fine...

you dont know until you ask

[zail]

The owner has been asked what his intentions are and has been somewhat contradictory to say the least.. his latest answer is that he wants to make it into a landscaped park with fountains.. However, the action group are worried about his intentions as he has a reputation for being a developer who flouts planning regulations and tends to get his own way with the council in the face of opposition from local people.

The action group also contends that the council could have made the owner prune the trees (as indeed 2 other organisations that own trees which overhang this wall have) rather than condemning them as dangerous. The owner and his employee have also been observed lighting fires amoungst the trees which is likely to have disturbed bats and birds and doesn't point to good woodland management.

The action group have a blog (which StuartDH asked me not to link to when I asked if it was ok to post this petition) which can be found by googling "Snuff Mills Action Group" and if you read that you will see that efforts have indeed been made to speak to the owner. If the fencing of the woods was only to protect the public from straying to the place where the trees are to be felled it would be in a completely different place.

I take your point about not knowing till you ask but that also depends on the quality and honesty of the answers given.