MP backs Joan’s campaign

Joan Gipson shows her letter from Michael Meacher M.P

An MP has been called in to a complaint about mature trees being felled for the new Oasis Academy site in Hollinwood.

Local campaigner Joan Gipson, of Montgomery Street, was horrified to see the trees on Hollins Road being sawn to the ground as work starts on the new building site.

The Academy will be built on the site of the former Brook Mill in Trough Gate, and 310 new trees will be planted when it opens.

The building will replace Kaskenmoor and Hollinwood schools, now operating as the Oasis Academy from split sites, and is due to open in 2012.

Mrs Gipson said: “Three or four weeks ago they started to put up fencing, and talking to the contractors it is going to be for buses to come round.

“It is criminal. We don’t have that many trees in Hollinwood as it is and now they are sawing mature ones down.

“I’m annoyed because I asked about hoardings on the site and was told it was to protect the trees — now I’m being told by workmen it’s to protect the public from the trees coming down.”

Mrs Gipson has written to her local MP Michael Meacher who has taken up the issue with Oldham Council.

Councillor Jack Hulme said there has been an assessment of the site’s trees and consultation with the Environment Agency, Oldham Council’s Arboricultural Team, Natural England the Greater Manchester Ecological Unit, the Lancashire Wildlife Trust and 829 neighbours.

He said 32 individual trees are being removed, five classed as mature. Nine groups of trees and a selection from another six groups will also be removed for development. From the groups of trees only three are classed as middle-age to mature.”

He added: “A number have died and several display defects such as stem wounds, branch failures and crown dieback.

“The proposal from Oasis is to plant 310 new trees of differing species as part of the construction work.”