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Setting the record straight!

How sad that Bradford on Avon Council felt it necessary to use a whole page in their Spring Newsletter to have the final word on Becky Addy Wood (BAW) so that they could move into the election season blaming everything on a few poor local residents who have apparently caused so much stress to Councillors and so much damage to the wood.

The Council triumphantly announce the formation of the BAW Liaison Committee to ‘foster an open and constructive relationship’ with those who paid most of the money to buy the wood, as if this was their big idea.

They fail to mention that throughout the court case they refused to sit down and talk face to face with the residents group, the Friends of Becky Addy Wood (FROBAW), and that the reason why this Committee was not set up months earlier, in accordance with the original agreement signed in 2020 by the Town Clerk on behalf of the Council, was that nothing they proposed was ever intended to be permanent. It wasn’t until they were ordered to do so by the Judge in May 2024 that they finally came to the table to set up the Liaison Group and that was only after being pressed by FROBAW to comply.

In the negotiations with FROBAW the Council were consistently evasive and “tricky”, trying to change the wording of the draft Liaison Committee Agreement without notifying FROBAW. They persist in blaming the action on two local residents who were in fact representatives of the community and the 140 or so people who originally raised over £30,000 to buy the wood. (The council put in £7,000.) It is not true that the action could have been withdrawn at any time as the reality is that the Council insisted that the action could only be withdrawn if FROBAW relinquished any say in the wood’s protection or if the residents paid the Council’s costs, neither of which would have been acceptable solutions, as it was always the Council who were in breach of the agreement they signed before the purchase.

There are no true winners here. The residents had to raise £175,000 as a contribution to the Council’s costs but surely the real story is that the Council actually spent £486,000 on their own legal costs fighting this case and nothing in their article remotely goes towards justifying how they could have allowed their spending on their “Post Office” solicitors to get so out of hand.

Every meeting on this subject has been held “in camera” and so the true extent of the impact on Council reserves, over £300,000, has been hidden from the voters in Bradford on Avon. No one on the Council has accepted any responsibility for this rampant overspending and the only way in which anyone can be held accountable is for people in Bradford on Avon to use their votes to show their disapproval.

Final bills are now in for FROBAW’s legal expenses from the court case to protect Becky Addy Wood from needless felling. Committee members and Represented Persons have already coughed up large sums of money. We now ask if other FROBAW members or sympathetic members of the public would be willing to support and alleviate this burden. To this end, a Crowdfunder account has been set up, link below. Please help if you can as everything will help.

https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/friends-of-becky-addy-wood-legal-costs-appeal#start

FROBAW Member Newsletter 3 December 2024

Two months have now passed since the judgment was handed down at Bristol High Court and your Committee have had time to digest the outcome and consider where we now stand. It still seems incredible that the justice of our claim to a share of ownership in Becky Addy Wood was not recognised and we have to consider whether to seek leave to appeal at the consequential hearing which has now been fixed for 15^th January 2025.

On the positive side the judge stated that the original Memorandum of Understanding with BoA Town Council dated 27^th April 2020 was a valid Agreement with FROBAW to set up a robust arrangement for the future management of the wood and we have started negotiations with the Town Council to enter into a suitable Agreement to put that into effect.

The question of who pays the costs of the action is to be decided at the hearing on 15^th January and the Councils claim that they have spent over £460,000 in fighting this action will be vigorously opposed. The costs budgets agreed by the Court prior to the action were nothing like this figure.

There are clearly still battles to take place and as a Committee we are united in how should take the matter forward. Sadly, the battle with the Council and the Court proceedings have taken their toll on the health of our Chair, Lisa Otter Barry, and she has decided to step back from her role as Chair whilst remaining for the time being on the Committee. We as a Committee are extremely grateful to Lisa for her wholehearted commitment to FROBAW over the past four and a half years and her knowledge of every aspect of the case has been invaluable. Hopefully taking a break now will help Lisa’s recovery and we wish her well.

At a Committee meeting on 7^th November, the decision was made to co-opt Nigel Tarrant onto the Committee and to appoint him as Chair. Nigel has not been on the Committee itself but has led the Litigation subcommittee for the past year and is fully committed to the task ahead of us and getting the best outcome for FROBAW. We have vacancies for Committee members to help us shape the future management of the wood alongside the Council. We particularly need people to work with our group on the proposed Becky Addy Wood Liaison Group. If you are interested in helping us, please email using the address below.

Unfortunately mediation between FROBAW and the Bradford on Avon Town Council was unsuccessful. We are therefore going to Trial at the Bristol High Court from Tuesday 30 May for up to 4 days.

Our dispute with the Bradford on Avon Town Council is attracting some media coverage:

https://www.wiltshiretimes.co.uk/news/23863222.becky-addy-wood-row-sees-town-council-hire-heavyweight-lawyer/

We have also made an appearance in the 15 December 2023 and 19 January 2024 editions of Private Eye magazine.

While we’re not able to provide a link to the article here, it was covered by the Wiltshire Times:

https://www.wiltshiretimes.co.uk/news/24003697.private-eye-lampoons-bradford-avon-town-council-woodland-row/

Thanks again to the extraordinary generosity of its members and of other local people, FROBAW won a temporary High Court Injunction in February – though not before another 40 trees had been destroyed. The High Court injunction to stop the felling is only temporary and there is now an urgent need to make the protection permanent. FROBAW therefore need further funds for the next stage of their legal campaign to preserve this beautiful, irreplaceable ancient woodland in perpetuity. The council has so far rejected FROBAW’s   out-of-court settlement offers, which would ensure proportionate risk assessment of the wood and seek to establish the wood as a local nature reserve – something the council had promised in the 2020 agreement.

Please donate to the FROBAW’s legal campaign to save this unique wood for present and future generations. Thank you for any support that you can give.

https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/save-becky-addy-ancient-woodland

Good news as there is full leaf after a later than usual budburst. These are living trees fighting Ash Die back.

Many asked at the time what was being done about the fallen tree which fell during storm Noa on 12th April 2023.

It did not cause harm to anyone and had not been not identified by BoA Town Council as a tree of concern.

BoA Town Council delayed removing it, citing that they could not do tree works on fallen deadwood. THAT WAS NOT CORRECT as the facts are:

• The High Court Injunction was imposed on February 10th 2023 to stop unnecessary felling of Ancient Woodland TPO Trees in this County Wildlife Site.
• The Injunction DOES NOT prohibit the clearance of deadwood or storm-fallen trees.

After considerable pressure from FROBAW and complaints from members of public about the path being blocked, the BoA Town Council eventually had the tree cleared seven weeks later.