Anger over wholesale destruction of trees

Contractors have started taking out trees along the A259 and further into the Eden Park site, to make way for the 396 houses to be built there if plans lodged with Arun District Council by Wimpey Homes are approved.

Gazette readers have also voiced anger over trees being cut down at a separate site three miles along the A259 at Climping.

The work at Toddington prompted David Thomas, of nearby Oakcroft Gardens, to investigate the effect on wildlife.

He said he had been told that bats, newts, slow worms and a badger, species all protected by law, had been disturbed at the site.

"They've been working down there for a week," said Mr Thomas. "They've got heavy earth-moving equipment, bulldozers, lorries and chainsaws. It looks like the Somme '“ you could shoot a war film down there.

"I spoke to someone from Wimpey and they told me that bats, slow worms and newts had been removed from the site and that a fence had been put up to stop a roaming badger from returning."

There is nothing to stop Wimpey, as landowner, beginning work on the site before planning permission is granted, and the preparations which began in September will continue until July.

Spokesman for the developers, Kevin Howlett, said: "The work at the site is part of the project and the team there are removing the poor quality undergrowth to prevent the reptiles that were removed from the site from returning in the next breeding season.

"They are also removing the dead elms on the site which apparently died as a result of Dutch elm disease and are a potential danger because they could fall onto the road."

Mr Howlett also added that the only licence needed to move animals from the site was for bats roosting at a bungalow there, but that this could only happen if planning permission was granted for the development and at a time when the bats were not hibernating.

He said three surveys at the site had found no badgers living there and that slow worms and other common reptiles already removed from the land had been taken to Forestry Commission land and released.

Further down the A259 at Climping, trees have also been removed from the roadside, prompting a number of complaints to the Gazette from readers.

Arun tree officer Ian Brewster said the large poplar trees were being dug up because they were overgrown and some had fallen onto the road, making them a danger to motorists.

The council had previously ordered contractors to stop work at the same site while an investigation was carried out into complaints from the public and a wildlife group.