Can Barratt cut down protected trees?

paddyrg

When people move in they won't care, the damage will all have been done, they will have got the money and gotten away with it again.

Can you find bats on your site, or a suggestion of them? That could kibosh the pillage from another angle.

I was upset when our new neighbour moved in - the gardens used to be connected and we had badgers come through, loads and loads of birds nesting etc. Typical 'moving up from London' he cut down all the pear trees, spruce, yew, other trees, built a VERY high fence - then cut away anything that was growing...and done nothing with it. 2 years later we still look over mud, have not seen a badger in at least as long as there is nowhere for them to come through, and there are far, far fewer birds.

ljonski

This is a sickening thread. If we lived in a just society the whole land owned by those Bastrrets (not a typo) should be forfeited and the COE dangled by his members from the nearest bridge. Please contact RSPCB,local conservatiion groups etc. This is scandalous and is a crime against us all.

pogofish

Barrett have not been active in my part of the world for quite a few years but it is sad to see that they are still up to exactly the same sort of shonky tricks that we got used to when they built so many houses and cut every corner/broke every rule you could possibly think of.

They seem to work on a "forgiveness is easier to obtain than permission" principle and I lost count of the number of times they just went ahead and did something, only to seek retrospective authority - which was seldom if ever refused.

In fact it was the continually reprehensible actions of Barratt and their ilk that convinced me a future in the building trade was not for me.

vax2002

I would have thought that each tree should constitute a separate offence and fine.

Elvisia

ljonski, I have contacted all the relevant local Wildlife places, the problem I am coming up against - and it makes me want to just scream - is that I keep being referred back to the Council. They all say it's the responsibility of the Council, even though They are doing something, but they're doing it retrospectively after the event, even though they do admit that.

We also had badger sets on that field, we protested originally about them building houses there and they said they'd not disturb them, but since they've been building I haven't seen one badger in my garden. It seems this is a countrywide problem, it would make an interesting investigative documentary.

VitaK

Where im from the council would have to send an environmental officer to asses the situation and ultimately demand that any illegal activities stops. If any further illegal activity is carried out, there building permission would be revoked and they would be heavily fined.

Elvisia

Yep this is what has happened, the officer (who originally wasn't going to go out as they didn't know if there was an order or not and I was told they weren't going to look at it) went out and then came back a day later to collect evidence.

God I would LOVE their building permission to be revoked! I have a feeling they're sailing really close to the wind at the moment.

wantmemoney

This isn't my 'area' but there is something that just does not make any sense about this.

How did Barratt get building permission (from the Council) if that building would require the chopping down of protected trees.

A FoI (Freedom of Information) request to your council might prove interesting reading.

paddyrg

Sadly they will probably abuse the weekend, then when the council guy is back on Monday they will have done the damage and flutter their eyelids all innocent like, and say "well we can't put the trees back so you may as well let us carry on now". And flutter some envelopes to key councilors. Many local councils are overtly corrupt, utterly shameless when it comes to things like this. I really hope your campaign with yours works out

Elvisia

The problem is they bought a large playing ground that have trees around the edges and spinneys. So they said they would not be touching the trees, and they have built just on the open grass area. The issue now is they want to 'landscape' the bits around the edges, so they just went gung-ho and started hacking away, I assume to make it look nice. It was quite bizarre what they were doing, I don't see why cutting down a row of trees exposing someone's back garden looks nicer than leaving perfectly good trees there. So they were destroying habit that had been there for a hundred odd years just so they could put in turf and a few shrubs.

I had heard from a neighbour that he'd seen a list of bribes given to people on the council, but I can't really comment on that as I have no idea if it's true or if he's making idle gossip. Fortunately one of the councillors lives near me and he's furious about the whole thing.

I have no doubt Barratt will keep cutting things down, but I'm pleased finally someone is doing something, because I had a day of wanting to just throw rocks at them. It's so frustrating that someone in your back yard - literally in this case - can break the law and there's so little you can do about it. And it sounds from this thread like I am not the only one.