Media Release 30/01/2021
Green Ixworth is taking on a major housing developer in order to save a local wood.
Members of Green Ixworth are desperate to prevent national housebuilder Persimmon destroying The Ixworth Parish Wood, as workers prepare to clear a prominent village site earmarked for a future housing estate called Priory Gardens.
The field bordering the narrow Crown Lane and the busy A143 bypass has been the subject of planning applications for years and now villagers fear the worst as Persimmon gear up to clear scrubland. A few days ago plastic fencing was erected enclosing the whole area of the site leaving two footpaths accessible. The woodland is now enclosed, for what purpose is unclear. The signs by one preserved footpath say ‘Warning Dangerous Excavations’.
In 2006, the former St Edmundsbury Council (now West Suffolk) provided the trees and Ixworth Parish Council funded the planting. The trees are in a band 25m wide and 140m long, covering 3,500 sq.m. This was with the agreement of the then landowner. The trees are not yet mature but are all more than 16 years old. The wood provides a number of benefits to wildlife – fruit and flowers and nesting, and for local residents and walkers, reducing road noise and pollution from the bypass, and providing a green and pleasant location.
Green Ixworth chair Roger Spiller says ”We wonder whether this latest move is a way of pre-empting another planning application by getting rid of the trees as an “agricultural improvement”, thus increasing the land available for building. It would also remove a small piece of woodland paid for by local tax payers in a forward looking move, without any attempt to consult with the parish council or local people.”
Green Ixworth is not opposed to the land being developed, but expects the developer to conform to high environmental standards. It has written to Persimmon seeking to work with them in preserving and enhancing the existing trees and hedges on the site, most of which will have to be retained as a screen for the development. So far no response has been received.
Councillor John Griffiths, leader of West Suffolk Council, has granted Green Ixworth £1,000 to enable the group to plant tree saplings and shrubs in the neighbouring corridor area to the threatened woodland. However, the Council has yet to intervene in the case of Ixworth Parish Wood.
Contact for comment and more information: Roger Spiller
Tel 01359 231229
Email roger.larbes@gmail.com
Media Release: Warren Lakin
Tel 07966 421641
