Friends of the Earth Birmingham Action Briefing Oct 98/Nov 98

Compromise, Expediency and Betrayal at Quinton Meadows

Guest article from Tim Weller

Birmingham City Council are in negotiations with the less than saintly St Modwen, the property developer, to sell and exchange nearly 20 acres for the damaged 8 acre Site of Importance for Nature Conservation (SINC) at Quinton Meadows.

Those of us who have been fighting to save the Meadows for over ten years, condemn this compromise unreservedly. It is an arrangement which gives the bulldozer brigade far too much land.

The nature conservation value of the SINC is not worth such a huge loss of the land to concrete, brick and tarmac. Let them have the 8 acres, if that cannot be stopped but definitely not the 18/ 19 acres they are negotiating to get. Anyway, 8 acres of SINC surrounded by office / industrial development and roads will be worthless.

Birmingham Council, when they wanted built development at Quinton Meadows, refused to recognise the 8 acres as a SINC and only gave it the inferior designation of Site of Local Interest for Nature Conservation (SLINC). Now, the land swap idea gives the Council the opportunity to get their hands on the land once more under the respectable umbrella of wanting to save 8 acres of nature conservation land they originally down rated to SLINC.

All this smacks of the Council cosying up to St Modwen to enter into a joint development of the land for mutual advantage of both and the people get sold down the river ! It now looks as though it was only for political expediency that the Council came over to oppose the built development of the land.

The politicians it seems were getting on a popular bandwagon in saying they wanted the meadows saved to help themselves get elected. Now elected they seem to e reverting to their original policy of industrial and business development there.

For us, this is betrayal - no more and no less. A shabby and unprincipled compromise; expediency and not morality. This is not a like for like swap at all.

Get Angry, Get Writing, Get Phoning.

Get our Councillors and officers of the Council to stand up for what we want. Stop even more of Quinton Meadows destroyed by their inadequate stance.

Please write to Councillor John Chapman., with copies to:

Councillor Rev Richard Bashford and Councillor Theresa Stewart at:

Council House,
Victoria Square,
Birmingham
B1 1BB.

Please send further copies to:

Chief Planning Officer,
Baskerville House,
Broad Street,
Birmingham
B1 2NA

and

Gisela Stuart MP,
House of Commons,
London SW1A 0AA.