More than 3240 people have now signed the petition against the proposal by Cheshire East Council to fell trees around Poynton Pool.
A very successful event was held by the Friends of Poynton Pool (FoPP) group at Poynton Pool last Saturday to further raise awareness about CEC’s destructive plans.
On Monday 200 people attended a public meeting organised by FoPP at the Poynton Royal British Legion with people queueing out of the door.
FoPP is keen to continue to engage with CEC and challenge them to update the data they are using, as well as identify a less intrusive and environmentally damaging alternative, whilst retaining the safety and aesthetics of the Pool prior to the submission of any planning applications.
The main organiser of the Friends of Poynton Pool Action Group is Jen Hartshorne, who says:
“The FoPP, the local community and the local Council continue to call for CEC to adopt a less environmentally destructive alternative so that flood resilience can be managed whilst protecting the very special landscape of Poynton Pool.
“The FoPP feels like red tape bureaucracy is allowing the CEC’s plans to continue, with common sense being ignored.
“Crucially, we are urging the council to conduct a formal Environmental Impact Assessment Report, and of course, ultimately, we would like them to formulate a new plan to prevent the apparent flood risk that wouldn’t cause so much damage to the area.”
It is thought that the work proposed by CEC will damage at least 80 trees from the historic tree line. The council is stating that they are only planning on removing 35 trees, but the reality is that many more will be damaged, and a huge area destroyed forever. They have also not stipulated at any point what they class as a ‘tree’ or a ‘shrub’. It isn’t just 80 trees that will be damaged, but an awful lot more environment as well.
The lack of transparency and openness displayed by CEC is incredibly frustrating and the FoPP does not understand why the CEC is not working with us or communicating properly. At no point do we feel like they have listened to the valid concerns and extensive environmental knowledge of the local community. The way this has been approached from day one is unacceptable. At the moment, we believe that the council is hiding behind outdated data and unrealistic reports. We are also concerned that the behaviours Cheshire East are showing mirror a number found in the recent Sheffield tree apology…
There is no evidence to say that the CEC is exploring all options when it comes to this project. The proposal that we believe is due to be submitted for planning is exactly the same as to what was presented to the public in October 2022. At no point has CEC addressed our environmental concerns – the trees are home to at least 15 red-listed species and at least 67 species with protections.
The cost of this project has more than doubled to £1.38m. And the value of the trees at £3m has not been included in the risk assessment. ‘We’ as taxpayers expect the CEC as custodians of public land to exhaust all options to reduce a spend of £1.4m when for example they are cutting over £1m from libraries which impacts the whole borough.
The Flood Study the CEC is basing its proposal on is at odds with local knowledge as to what occurs at the Pool during heavy rainfall including flooding events. It concludes that overtopping would occur for events greater than a 1 in 50 years. However, Poynton has suffered 3 serious flooding events greater than 1 in 50 in 2016 and 2019 but no flooding occurred from the Pool.
