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Magazine Issue 10 - Spring 2000
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| Destruction of the Countryside PLC When 15-year-old Christiana Tugwell and her friends first set up Beckney Protest Camp, the media fell over themselves for the story. But as Mark Lynas reports, the adulation focused on this charismatic teenager has threatened to obscure the real story of Hockley – a tale of money, power, and the cynical attempts of a construction company to override the wishes of local people in the interests of profit. When the PR man from Countryside Residential first turned up at Maria Tugwell’s house, he promised to build a ‘reservoir’ next door. "Now it turns out I’m getting a sewage pumping station," she says bitterly. The reason for the PR man’s visit was to reassure Maria - and other residents of the small Essex town of Hockley - that the 144 houses Countryside Residential was planning to build on their local wildlife site would be a benefit to the community. Maria, and her 15-year-old daughter Christiana Tugwell, were not convinced. Visit the site now, and you can see why. Heavy machinery has already reduced the meadows to muddy mess, levelled the newt ponds and spat the trees out into piles of mouldering wood chippings. It’s a sight that leaves Christiana, who spent her childhood in these woods, struggling for words. "I don’t understand how the people from Countryside Residential can sleep at night," she says, "…because it was so beautiful, and now it’s gone." Beckney Woods was a nucleus for the community – people would walk their dogs, pick blackberries, or watch their children play. Now there is an eight-foot-high wire fence around the site, and security guards patrol warily inside. In July last year Christiana and several of her friends gave up writing letters and set up Beckney Protest Camp. The audacious teenagers immediately caught the headlines, and Christiana became something of a media celebrity – with interviews in Face magazine and on local television to her credit. However, the blaze of publicity didn’t prevent Countryside Residential from trying to starve the protesters out - and from staging an eviction by stealth which was later ruled illegal in the court of appeal. Initially Countryside Residential took a low-profile approach to the Hockley case, but as press interest mounted its parent company Countryside Properties PLC was forced to start marshalling a defensive strategy. All enquiries are now referred on to Sky Communications, a PR agency based in London. Julia Arnold, who gives long off-the-record briefings to journalists, makes it her mission to convince callers that the Beckney Woods protesters were little more than a bunch of self-interested drug addicts. She even tells a story, supposedly related by a security guard, about how a group of protesters left the site because "they said we’ve run out of booze and drugs and we’re bored now". She also reels off a long list of environmentally sound projects the company has been involved in, including "the first sustainable school ever to be built in Britain". Countryside Properties, whose Chairman Alan Cherry MBE is a member of the New Labour’s Urban Task Force and Chairman of Anglia Polytechnic University, apparently considers itself to be a leader in ecological sustainability. Perhaps Countryside’s most curious accusation is that the protesters stand to benefit personally in some way from the campaign. Their behaviour has "raised questions about what they want", Arnold hints darkly. It’s an ironic allegation - considering the financial rewards that the real beneficiaries of the Hockley development stand to make. Countryside’s Chairman Alan Cherry received a renumeration package last year totalling £522,000, whilst his two sons Graham and Richard, who are also Countryside directors, received a healthy £516,000 each. The Hockley story is far from unique – there are campaigns and protest sites sprouting up all over the country against new housing developments. The government argues that up to 4.4 million new houses will need to be built over the next two decades, 40% of which are expected to be constructed on greenfield sites. The new houses proposed for Hockley are almost staggeringly inappropriate for the community they will be sited in. Although Countryside Residential reduced them in number from 144 to 66 when faced with local protests, it soon emerged that instead of being 2-3 bedroom houses they would be 6-7 bedroom properties – and the amount of space being taken up would actually be greater than that originally proposed. Perhaps one of the saddest elements of the Hockley story is the predicament in which it places the local defenders of conservation – Essex Wildlife Trust (EWT). Countryside Residential is one of 320 corporate sponsors of EWT. In return for an annual subscription of £500, the company gets to use the wildlife trust’s logo on its letterheads and other publicity. The liaison has led to accusations by protesters that the Trust failed to adequately defend the land – something spokesman Graham Game denies. "We did object to it – on two occasions," he claims, while admitting that corporate sponsorship is "a tightrope. Today’s green company is tomorrow’s polluter." Once the developer has been granted planning permission – in this case by a district council which seemed over-eager to get its hands on some ready cash – the wildlife trust can do little more than try to mitigate the destruction. As told by Julia Arnold from Sky Communications, the impression is that Countryside Residential were doing Hockley’s great crested newts a massive favour: the animals were moved from a small pond to a specially-dug new home on an "adjacent site". Essex Wildlife Trust, however, are a little less enthusiastic. Translocation is "difficult and controversial", admits Graham Game, "but faced with losing a habitat it may well be worth a try". The end of the Beckney protest camp was as swift as it was unexpected. A tunnel at least 30 feet deep had been constructed, within which Christiana and other campaigners expected to spend at least two weeks underground. The aim was to force an expensive eviction – with tunnelers under them, no work could begin on the construction site. Countryside Residential’s reponse was wily. The company – seemingly working hand in hand with the police – gradually increased the pressure on the protesters and local people at the same time as laying a carefully planned trap. Initially, protesters, locals and visitors could come and go freely. But by the middle of February, fences had been erected, and local supporters ordered to stay away. Even Maria Tugwell, whose home had been illegally fenced off, was forced by security guards to observe strict conditions. Only two visitors were allowed at any one time to follow the public right of way to her house – and they had to make advance appointments with security guards. All visitors would be filmed, and were also prevented from bringing food and other provisions for the camp. Agreements to allow water and electricity to the protesters were regularly broken. With the camp transformed into an open prison, numbers dwindled – especially as provisions ran low. On Monday 28 February Christiana Tugwell received a call from Countryside Residential PLC, assuring her that the company was anxious to avoid an expensive eviction, and that the camp would be left alone. But in the early hours of the following morning, the chainsaw gang moved in. Christiana was arrested trying to stop tree-felling. Only one other resident managed to reach a ‘lock-on’ in a tree, where he spent the night. The tunnel – into which so much time and energy had been invested – was left empty and undefended. There is no doubt that Countryside Residential had inflicted a major defeat on the local campaign against it in Hockley. We now know that its victory depended on breaking the law – the court of appeal ruled on 7 March that the company had started work well before it owned the legal title to the site. But there is every chance that other developers will still follow this precedent - ignoring legal restrictions and rushing to clear new protest sites early. Small fines make less of a dent in profits than big evictions. But suppressing protest in one area simply makes it more likely to spring up elsewhere. Many of the Hockley protesters have now moved to a site at nearby Ashingdon, where developers plan to build 32 homes on – you guessed it – a wildlife site much valued by local people. Perhaps this time, following the lessons learned in Hockley, there is a chance that in this battle between local people and corporate profits it is the community – the real guardians of environmental sustainability – who will win the day. For more see http://www.angelfire.com/mt/GBH/ (Campaign Against Silly Houses). Contact Ashingdon Protest Camp at Golden Cross Road, Ashingdon, Essex. Tel 07833 191 951 Thanks to Xanthe Bevis for additional info. The Countryside Files |