4 December 2013
A Peasley Cross community is fighting to save a local nature spot from the bulldozers.
Nearly four acres of woodland, just to the south of the old Peasley Cross Hospital in Marshalls Cross Road, are under threat from developers acting on behalf of the Department of Health.
Locals say the site is a haven for wildlife and a valuable asset the community can ill-afford to lose. They have enlisted the support of St Helens Green Party in an eleventh hour bid to save the beauty spot.
Marshalls Cross Road resident Bryan Leyland says:
“This is a desperate and disgraceful attempt by a government department to trash what little is left of our countryside for cash.
“We feel we’ve been deliberately kept in the dark for years and we’re not going to let it disappear under concrete without a fight.
“The Department of Health and St Helens Council should be working with us to protect and expand this wildlife haven for the benefit of the local community and patients from our nearby hospitals, not sending in the bulldozers to destroy it.”
95 year old Olive Grey has lived nearby her entire life. She added:
“There used to be allotments here many years ago, but the people who tended them were thrown off. It would be nice to see them back.
“There’s a stream and there was a lake too, but that was filled in.
“The trees have probably been here forty or fifty years and we’ve seen long-tailed tits, blue tits, wrens, blackbirds, thrushes, jays, finches, owls, kestrels and woodpeckers down the years. “There are also pheasants, foxes, squirrels, hedgehogs and bats. It would be a tragedy to lose it and once it’s gone, they are gone forever.”
Local residents tried to buy the site for themselves at auction in the 1990s, but their bid was unsuccessful. Now, despite problems with contamination and subsidence from the ‘Blue Hills’ of the former Sherdley Colliery, the land is back on the market.
Residents will meet again on Sunday 24th November and are being advised on planning matters and other options by St Helens Green Party.
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