Fight to save Newark trees being cut down for car park

The council entered a legally-binding agreement with the landowner in 2019

Campaigners have said they will keep fighting to stop four trees being cut down to construct a car park.

Councillors approved plans to build the car park, which will involve felling the sycamore trees in Newark, Nottinghamshire at a meeting last week.

Protesters have said they will monitor the site to stop the trees being cut.

Newark and Sherwood District Council said it had a contract with the landowners and it would cost taxpayers more than £600,000 to save the trees.

Campaigners have told the Local Democracy Reporting Service they were "devastated" by the decision to remove the trees on Balderton Gate.

Jenni Harding, of Protect Newark's Green Spaces, said: "We have a monitoring group working shifts and we have got people down there 12 hours a day.

"We have people willing to chain themselves to trees, they are prepared to be arrested."

Protect Newark's Green Spaces said campaigners were willing to chain themselves to the trees

Donna Bowyer, of Extinction Rebellion Newark and Sherwood, said: "If it comes to it, there will be individuals prepared to stay with the trees until the very end."

She said cutting down mature trees was "the very last thing that anybody should be doing", particularly in the run-up to the COP26 climate change summit.

The council entered a legally-binding agreement with the landowner in 2019.

The agreement commits the council to building the car park and paying £30,000 per year in rent for 25 years.

'Mistakes made'

Councillor Keith Girling, deputy leader of the council, said: "The cost of getting out of that contract is far too much.

"As a council, we've got to do what we think is right. Yes there were mistakes made and we aren't trying to deny that.

"It is easy to sit on a pedestal but we have to consider the whole of the district."

Mr Girling said officers looked into the cost of moving the trees and said it was "very expensive" with no guarantee it would be successful.

He said the authority was planting 16 trees "as mitigation" for the removal of the sycamore trees, adding the council has started purchasing its first electric vehicles.