Wellingborough tree campaigners vow to carry on the fight and say 'bats detected' in area

Campaigners have promised to carry on their fight to save as many Wellingborough trees as possible as protests continue into a third week in London Road.

More than 70 residents gathered under the trees at The Embankment to hear from organisers about the latest developments in the battle to save the lime avenue known as The Walks.

Wellingborough Town Council’s Marion Turner-Hawes (Ind, Isebrook) and North Northants Council’s Valerie Anslow (Lab, Croyland and Swanspool) spoke to the crowd to update the group (yesterday).

Cllr Anslow said: “We will carry on the fight to save the trees. We will be down here tomorrow and we are going to try to stop the works.”

Since Thursday the group has been using specialist listening equipment to record potential evidence of bats that use the trees.

Cllr Turner-Hawes said: “Volunteers from the local community have been surveying the lower Walks area using specialised bat detection equipment which uses sonar to pick up bats.

“Volunteers have surveyed the Walks on consecutive nights from Thursday to detect any bat presence. On each occasion they have successfully picked up a range of recordings showing the presence of bats in and around some of the trees on the Walks, between the Dog and Duck and the Tesco roundabout, and on the section from the same roundabout down to the river.

“Given these signs of the presence of bats, and the urgent reality that more trees from the Walks are due to start being felled on Monday, we have contacted Northants Police and asked them to look into this, raising our concerns for the welfare of the bats in the area sharing the survey results.

"Disturbance of roosting bats is an offence under Bat Protection Legislation. We also plan to make the developers aware of these new findings as soon as possible and will ask them if they will now reconsider the planned felling from Monday in the light of this new information.

“The volunteers are not professionals but they feel it is significant that they have been able to pick up these readings particularly given how cold it has been in the last couple of days and the fact that bats would usually still be hibernating at this time of year anyway.”

As well as investigating bats, all the information the group has gathered about the tree felling has been given to a barrister.

Cllr Turner-Hawes added: “We will continue to use all legal means to challenge this appalling situation to safeguard the trees. I am sure if I had stood in the Embankment last Sunday and said only 14 trees would be felled, many would have been upset but also relieved. However, with at least 20 trees still to be felled from the lower section by the river, it does not feel like a time for celebration but more a time to re-focus our efforts and determination and work to save as many more trees from the Walks as we can.”

Cllr Anslow added: "I cannot understand how these decisions were made. It’s carnage and it's not been thought through.”

Northants Police has been contacted for a comment.