Editorial: ​Councillors do the right thing and vote to save precious wooded site in Newtownards

The reprieve for ​Tullynagardy Wood on the edge of Newtownards is very welcome, and perhaps unexpected.

A proposal to construct a housing development there would have seen more than one-third of the site destroyed.

Planners in Ards and North Down Council had recommended that it get the go ahead but councillors rejected the plan.

Surveys had found that the oldest trees in Tullynagardy have been there for around 200 years – which means they were there for the Napoleonic wars or shortly thereafter.

It is a tragedy when trees of that vintage are felled. Sometimes it is unavoidable for safety reasons, but it is a loss that should only be allowed deliberately in careful and clearly justified circumstances.

The Woodland Trust was right to be outraged and it said that the plans had been “threatening an irreplaceable habitat”.

Northern Ireland is one of the least forested parts of Europe. We have plenty of open spaces and brown belt land which is more suited to the development and housing that NI does need.

The decision of the councillors is welcome because there have been well founded fears that elected members across the province take a pro development approach to planning, and are often inclined to over-ride environmental concerns.

There is has been no suggestion whatsoever of any proposed wrongdoing in this particular application, in which developers made a perfectly acceptable application to build and put forward legitimate arguments to develop the site. However, in other cases in other parts of Northern Ireland, trees have been felled illegally by less scrupulous developers.

The province needs much stronger tree protections to prevent such bad behaviour.