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Addington residents respond en bloc to save Green Belt

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Block action: Addington villagers with the concrete slabs that were placed at Flaconwood last week to try to prevent further unauthorised road works on the Green Belt

Members of the Addington Residents’ Association took matters into their own hands last week, getting massive concrete blocks, looking like giant Lego bricks, installed at the top end of a once grassy lane to halt further unauthorised road works in the Green Belt.

Inside Croydon reported last week how a landowner had erected gates to block public access to a large field and started to build an access road, without any planning permission or agreement with the council.

Before: how the lane looked before the roadworks

The works have been going at the junction of Huntingfield, Falconwood and Lodge Lane. Land has been cleared, vegetation stripped bare, trees felled, hardcore bedded down, possibly to be tarmacked over.

Planning officers from Croydon Council attended the site last week to warn the contractors that work must cease, though residents claim that the council enforcement officials have done precious little else.

So they took matters into their own hands.

After: how the Green Belt was being despoiled

“The council’s enforcement team has visited the site. Meanwhile, other members of the council’s planning staff are also advising the field’s owners on their impending planning application,” one resident told Inside Croydon.

“The ARA has paid for concrete block barriers to be placed on what we think is the council-owned verge, but even that ownership title is disputed. We are trying to stop construction vehicles from gaining access to the Green Belt designated field.

“Some of the protesters (we have probably seen support from more than 150 local folk) are seen in the photograph with the blocks in place.”

The action was agreed at a residents’ association meeting last Tuesday, and the blocks were in place by Wednesday afternoon.


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