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THE KEYFORD CHAINSAW MASSACRE

Sunday 27 August 2006:  chainsaws and false promises

At 1000h on a peaceful Bank Holiday Sunday, residents of the Lower Keyford area heard the sound they had been dreading for months: chainsaws were at work in the old orchard that had once been part of the Stonewall Manor estate.  Pausing only to telephone from house to house for wider POLKA support we ran to the site gate on Culverhill.  On site there were two unidentified workmen plus the key holder, Robin Mason, a Horninghsam carpenter-joiner with offices on the Marston trading estate, and the developers’ agent John Sneddon of Tetlow King planning consultancy.  They refused to admit us to the site and insisted that the Tree Preservation Order granted by Mendip Council in February 2006 had expired, leaving them free to fell whatever trees they liked within the site boundary.  POLKA members disputed this and called the police who arrived within minutes.  The developers’ men were by this time back inside the gate, and there was an ugly scene when they tried to prevent the police entering, trapping the WPC’s hand in the gate. 

The police mediated in heated discussions between the developers’ men and POLKA members.  At one point one of the men was heard to say, “What’s all the fuss about? It’s only a tree.” Being a Bank Holiday, it was not possible to speak to anyone in the Planning Department at Mendip District Council – as the developers knew when they planned this felling foray (Link to planning application). Unable to get an official view on the legalities of the work, the police sergeant drew up a handwritten undertaking that work would be suspended until Tuesday 29 August 2006 to allow POLKA time to consult with Mendip District Council.  With visible reluctance, Mr Sneddon signed the agreement.  After seeing the hired hands on their way, POLKA members dispersed.  Little did we know what was to follow ….

Monday 28 August 2006:    cut-and-run raids, and a giant falls

The sun had not long been up by 0545h on this Bank Holiday Monday morning when neighbours were roused from sleep by the sound of chainsaws in the orchard.  Following instruction given to us by local police the previous day, we dialled 999 and ran round to the entrance on Culverhill.   By the time we got there the site had been abandoned and the gate padlocked.  However shortly after the arrival of the police (by which time almost a dozen of POLKA members had assembled), the site keyholder drove up together with two large and intimidating men.  They told the police, “We’ve just this minute been called in by the owner to fell the tree as it was unsafe”. This was patent nonsense: they had themselves damaged the tree beyond repair only minutes earlier, had vacated the site when they heard our shouts of alarm, driven away, and now they were pretending to arrive to make the tree safe. That the work had started before 0600h, when honest folk were still abed, was simply further evidence of the developers’ deviousness and ill intent. They had sneaked in, and in a matter of minutes they had done enough damage to make felling inevitable. 

The police were clearly not pleased at what had happened.  The written agreement drawn up by the police sergeant the previous day, signed by planning consultant John Sneddon, had not only been ignored but had been breached with great deviousness by the workmen’s returning just after dawn on a Bank Holiday.  Being unable to trust anything the developers’ men said, POLKA members would not accept that the trees were unsafe.  We pointed out that the workmen were clearly not professionals – they were not even properly equipped for the task, wearing no hard hats, visors, gauntlets or steel-capped boots, and carrying no ropes, pulleys or other tackle.  

The police inspected the beech tree.  They discovered that four-fifths of the trunk had been cut through horizontally, leaving it standing in an irreparable and dangerous state.  Deciding that an independent opinion was needed, together with professional help to achieve a safe felling, the police ordered that work be suspended while they tried to contact a certified tree surgeon.  Denied access by the site keyholder Robin Mason we called Councillor Rex Long who has been a supporter of our campaign. He was also denied access but came anyway to offer his support.  There was little else that could be done by then, given the fatally damaged state of the tree. The workmen went off jeering, and POLKA members had no alternative but to go home in shock and dismay. The keyholder stayed on site; but sometime around 1000h, when he was at the Culverhill gate talking to the police woman, there was a great cracking sound from within the walls: the giant beech tree fell, alone, unsupervised and unguided.  It was only by chance that it did not crash straight on to the gardens and outer walls of Stevens Lane properties.   Shouts of "Bastards!" were audible across Lower Keyford as POLKA members expressed their outrage.

Tuesday 29 August 2006:  carnage in the orchard

POLKA members were outside Mendip District Council offices to speak to planning officers as soon as the doors opened following the Bank Holiday weekend.  MDC officers were clearly disturbed by what had happened over the long weekend.  Appreciating our fear of worse damage yet to come, they accepted our urgent application for a new Tree Preservation Order (TPO) which they hoped to rush through before the end of the working day.  They also advised us that a new planning application was expected within days and that the developers were so determined to succeed this time that they were already preparing their appeal against any refusal by the planning committee.

POLKA met that evening to discuss next steps.  It was about 1900h when suddenly we heard the by now familiar sound of a chainsaw – and from across the roofs and hedges of Lower Keyford we saw the fruit trees in the old orchard topple one by one.  The meeting was abandoned as we raced once more to the Culverhill gate, arriving just in time to see the workmen’s turquoise Citroën getaway car racing up to the Locks Hill traffic lights.   By then the damage was done: the old fruit trees, descendants of all those that had stood in the historic orchard during the last 300 years or more, were lying where they fell, the wreckers’ lengths of washing line and thin strapping still looped around them.

Wednesday 30 August 2006:  TPO served and trickery foiled

Mendip District Council’s tree officers Steve Clark and Bo Walsh came to inspect the site.  As they emerged on to Culverhill they appeared to POLKA members to be visibly shaken by what they had seen.  One of them described the scene in the orchard as ‘carnage’, and agreed with POLKA views that the work had been carried out unprofessionally.  POLKA members asked when the new Tree Preservation Orders (TPOs) had come into effect, and were told they had been signed – and therefore technically came into force - before 1700h the previous day (Tuesday); however by that time of day it was not possible to ensure the orders were served by email or fax on the developers at their offices in Jersey, so the council was regarding the TPOs as applying from 0800h today, Wednesday.  This of course meant that the developers had been able to avoid formally being served with the new TPOS, leaving them free to send in their men that evening to complete their wretched task without fear of prosecution.

While talking with the tree officers one POLKA member noticed an interesting detail about the site gate: next to the developers’ familiar padlock, a ‘new’ but well-worn padlock hung by its open hook.  Surplus to requirements, it was therefore highly suspicious.  Mindful of earlier betrayals on the part of the developers and their agents, the POLKA member instantly suspected that some sort of trickery was afoot.  She asked the tree officers if the lock were theirs; it was not.  Knowing it not to be put there by POLKA members, she suspected the developers might be attempting to ‘fit up’ POLKA for illegally obstructing the site gate.  She quickly removed the mystery padlock, only to watch in astonishment as keyholder Robin Mason and his Custom Joinery apprentice solemnly took photographs of the gate. By this time there remained only their own padlock, and they hadn’t spotted that the second lock had been removed.  If it had been their intention to frame POLKA for obstruction, the ruse backfired.

Anyone wishing to claim the mystery padlock should email info@polkafrome.co.uk.