The 1.5 acres are being auctioned next week, but protections are making it challenging to build on.
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00:00 A sanctuary for wildlife in Fathersham under threat. This one and a half acres of land
00:08 is up for auction. It has the label of excellent development potentials. But this woodland
00:15 has been identified as designated local green space on the town's proposed neighbourhood
00:22 plan. This Fathersham town councillor is hopeful the land will remain woodland because of this.
00:29 But the Labour Party say if they're in government they'll be changing planning laws in order
00:34 to build more homes.
00:36 Labour as a party has respect for local democracy and local planning regulation and I think
00:45 a key thing that the position here shows is the importance of local plans and of planning
00:54 rather than just leaving things open to developers to do whatever they want.
01:01 Local environmentalists say the knoll woodland is the green lung of Fathersham. A tree preservation
01:07 order is in place but can that be overturned?
01:11 It would be quite a, I don't like to use the word battle, but it would be for whoever wanted
01:18 to develop it because there would be a huge uproar locally. It's a loved place, even though
01:24 people dump rubbish on it, you can see how beautiful it is. And so therefore there would
01:30 be quite a campaign to try and stop that happening.
01:35 Apart from that fly tipping, the woodland is largely left to nature. You can hear the
01:39 birdsong in the background. There are no official routes through the woodland but if it is sold
01:47 to developers, some locals would like to see set pathways being built to allow them to
01:52 benefit more from their local green space.
01:56 There are protections in place to stop houses being built here, however there are calls
02:01 locally for more affordable homes.
02:04 There is a desperate need for affordable housing and that's the real problem. There are over
02:10 a thousand people that are waiting for housing on Swaleborough Council's housing list. There
02:15 is the neighbourhood plan which we've been working with the community to put together
02:18 which looks at prioritising building on brownfield sites as an example.
02:23 This woodland goes to auction next week. The starting bid, a quarter of a million pounds.
02:29 But any sale will come with the challenge of convincing locals that houses here would
02:34 benefit the community. Gabriel Morris for KMTV in Fabersham.