Environmental Campaigners Battle to Save Ancient Oaks
Campaigners have defied one of West Sussex’s richest landowners, the Somerset family, and set up a protest camp at Titnore Woods near Worthing.
Bailiffs, accompanied John Somerset, 83, and his son Clem, 49, tried to stop the ‘incursion’ early on Sunday morning, but to no avail as 15 to 20 protesters ignored their pleas and took to the trees; setting up camp 70ft high on platforms built into ancient oaks and ashes.
Titnore Woods are one of the final few remaining ancient woodlands in Sussex; one of only two surviving on the Sussex coastal plain and home to a number of protected species: great crested newts, bats, badgers, skylarks and corn buntings included.
The Somerset's are in the process of selling the land for a reputed £4m to a consortium led by controversial developer Gerald Ronson, He was found guilty of conspiracy, false accounting and theft in August 1990, as part of the Guinness insider share dealing scandal and was fined £5m and sentenced to one year in prison; released in February 1991 after serving six months.
Ronson now heads the Heron Group which alongside Bryant Homes (part of Taylor Woodrow) and Persimmon Homes has outline planning permission for around 900 homes on the Greenfield site. A new expanded Tesco Hypermarket is also in the offing. Local campaigners claim that in nearby Worthing more than 1,000 homes lie empty.
In September 2005 their campaign hit the national headlines when Protect Our Woodland! members burned an effigy of John Prescott in Titnore Lane. This followed the former environment minister’s refusal to call the plans in for a public enquiry. Now full permission is a formality, with the final planning meeting expected to give support at the beginning of July.
A 2005 report by The Woodland Trust and the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) shows that more than 100 of the county's most important ancient woods are facing destruction, despite planning policies which seek to protect them.