'Protected wood could be back under the shadow of the axe after developers relaunch bid to build housing over it: 'Arguments will have to be made again to ensure this site is saved', says MLA
The shadow of the axe could be hovering over a protected Co Down wood once again, after moves to build a housing project over it were back on the cards.
Some of the trees in Tullynagardy Wood on the outskirts of Newtownards are up to 200 years old and a host of them are protected, but council planners nonetheless gave a thumbs-up to a proposal that would have constructed a housing development on more than one-third of the site.
The move sparked outrage from locals and the Woodland Trust, the latter of whom regarded the construction green light as “threatening an irreplaceable habitat” – but in what was hailed as a victory for people power, in October politicians on Ards and North Down Council took the rare step of breaking with their own planners and refused permission to build.
Developers WJ Law have now lodged an appeal against that refusal with a higher provincewide planning authority, however, meaning there will be another round deciding whether or not to allow the project to go ahead.
The Planning Appeals Commission’s hearing and subsequent verdict won’t be until next year at the earliest. Information published by the commission states the appeal was lodged at the end of last week.
But for Strangford MLA Nick Mathison, who backed residents in their fight to save Tullynagardy Wood, said the news will come as a huge disappointment for people who sought to protect what they regard as a valuable green lung in an otherwise built-up area.
“It is the right of any applicant to lodge an appeal,” he told the News Letter. “However, residents who fought so hard to make the case that development on a long-established woodland site was unacceptable will clearly be very disappointed with this news
“The planning committee opposed this development unanimously and the arguments will now have to be made again to ensure this site is protected.
“The council’s role is now key. Officials must make the case robustly that the right decision was made and this whole site should remain undeveloped. I hope the right decision is reached in due course.”
During the campaign, Mr Mathison had criticised Northern Ireland’s tree protection orders. Although the public thinks they mean trees are safe from the axe, he stated, in practice they’re not much more than a few extra hoops for property developers to jump through.
“A protection order does not mean a tree can never be felled, it just means you have to have good reason to take a tree down,” he said at the time. “Often, those reasons aren’t too difficult for developers to demonstrate – anything from concerns about the health of trees to a development being impossible without taking them down.”
The housing scheme was to be mainly built on a clearing in the wood, and would have involved chopping down 18 trees. Planners had broadly accepted arguments on behalf of the developers that the clearing was distinct from parts of the site with heavier tree coverage and so construction could be permitted, and also that many of the trees to be felled were not in good health.
But the council decided to block the development on the grounds that it would result in the loss of open space as well as damage to “a long-established woodland”.