Moving Protected Trees

 

 

 

The text of a letter published in the Wharfedale and Airedale Observer on 6 March 2008:

 

SIR,  As I have already raised in this newspaper, the planning application submitted by Chartford Homes seeking permission to build houses on the site of the Summercross pub contains a major and so far unexplained error.

 

The plans submitted by Chartford Homes include a tree report.  On this, they have plotted the trees in their correct locations.  However, on their plan for their proposed development, most of the trees have moved!  All 12 trees in the public park next to the Summercross appear to have been displaced some five metres towards Pool Road.  One particular tree, which is located well within the park, appears on Chartford's development plan growing out of the footpath along Pool Road!

 

So far Chartford Homes have failed to come with an explanation for this extraordinary error.  Indeed Chartford MD Chris Thompson tried to throw us a red herring in this newspaper by talking about a separate map.  So let me be clear, what we are talking about are two plans, both submitted by the company as part of this planning application, showing trees in different locations.  So by mistake, or by design, the trees have moved.

 

We now know, having forced it out of them, that Chartford Homes intend to try to overturn a Tree Preservation Order, which speaks volumes about their attitude.  However, we still are utterly baffled by the mysterious moving trees.  It seems clear that, if the trees are plotted in the right places, the proposed new houses would touch the protected trees in the park, which makes the development impossible without threatening those trees.

 

Unsurprisingly, considering the lack of explanation from Chartford Homes, there is considerable speculation about the reasons for this substantial discrepancy in their plans, but one thing is certain: This is not a professional way to operate and will do nothing to enhance Chartford's Homes reputation.  So I am asking Chartford Homes again, to please explain how they came to prepare and submit two plans with trees drawn in different locations and how and why the trees came to be moved on their development plan.

 

The locals of the Summercross pub, a pub that should never have been closed, the people who live nearby and the wider community of Otley demand an explanation.

 

Greg Mulholland - MP for Leeds North-West

 

 Click here to see for yourself the evidence of the "moving trees" (photographs of the Chartford Homes plans)