It's been over a month since our last email, and there’s been a lot going on. This email is about a single thing: what has been done to the land at Handsworth Hall Farm (SES29) since 3 September.

A second email, on our recent meeting with the Council Leader and the further consultation that is about to start, will follow in the next few days.

What has happened at Handsworth Hall Farm (SES29)

On Thursday 3 September a resident walking a footpath found a JCB at work along Handsworth Beck, inside the boundary of the proposed SES29 allocation. Over the following week, trees and shrubs were pulled out by the roots, a channel about 4 metres deep and 500 metres long was dug out along the line of the stream, and the spring-fed watercourse was reshaped. By Tuesday 8 September the uprooted trees were being burned on site.

The contractors told residents they were "widening the stream". The photographs show what that has meant in practice.

Before the work started this was native hedgerow along a spring-fed beck, and a known area for badgers. The December 2023 biodiversity assessment of the site recorded it as high-distinctiveness habitat: the kind that is hardest to replace and counts most when a site's ecology is measured.

Residents reported the work to the police, the Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust and planning enforcement on the day it was found. Local councillors have since raised it with Council leaders, planning officers and other agencies.

• Woodhouse Councillor Nathaniel Menday submitted a formal complaint and an urgent enforcement enquiry to the Council's Planning and Planning Enforcement teams. He also alerted the Environment Agency and the Wildlife Trust.

• Councillor Alison Norris phoned Council Leader Fran Belbin, who in turn spoke to the Council's Chief Executive, Kate Josephs. Councillor Norris also visited the site with residents and sent photographs and video of the damage to the Leader.

• Councillor Mick Rooney escalated the concerns to planning officers, including Planning Enforcement and the Head of Planning.

Clive Betts's office has also taken the matter up and has been in contact with the company preparing the developer's environmental assessment. We thank all three councillors and the MP's office for acting quickly. A resident has also raised the matter with the Forestry Commission, although we do not yet know what action, if any, it is taking.

What the Council says, and what we say

The Council's first answer, on Friday 4 September, came after a phone call with the developer's planning agent. The agent described the work as maintenance of drainage dykes by a tenant farmer. On that basis, planning enforcement said no breach of planning control had occurred.

A fuller reply followed on 9 September, and the Service Manager for Development Management repeated it on the 11th. The land is part of an agricultural holding of more than 20 hectares, and excavation and engineering works on holdings above 5 hectares are permitted development, so the Council says it cannot take enforcement action against the groundworks. None of the trees had a Tree Preservation Order. A tree officer visited, and the Council says it has not been able to show that the vegetation met the legal definition of a protected hedgerow, taking the view that the shrubs had self-seeded along the ditch rather than being planted or kept as a field boundary. On that basis it says it cannot serve a Hedgerow Replacement Notice. Badgers, it says, are a police matter.

We do not accept that account, and nor do the residents who know the beck. It is a natural, spring-fed watercourse, named as Handsworth Beck on historic maps, not a drainage dyke. The hedgerow along it was continuous, more than 20 metres long and more than 30 years old, which is the test for a protected hedgerow. The scope of works the agent described - "removal of shrubs and selected tree(s)" - does not describe what was done. And the people on site told residents the land is now back under the control of the Handsworth Farm Partnership, not a tenant. The Wildlife Trust has been helping to characterise what was there and is making its own representations to the Council.

We still do not know who commissioned the work or which contractor carried it out. The Council has been given one account by the developer's agent; residents on site were given another. No contractor has been named.

Two further things deserve attention.

First, the police attended on 3 September and told residents this was a matter for planning enforcement. Planning enforcement says harm to wildlife is a matter for the police.

Second, both the Council and the developer's consultants say the loss will be dealt with on paper. The Council says that if a planning application comes forward, the biodiversity baseline will be taken from what was there before the works, "with a presumption of high value and high distinctiveness habitat", and the developer will have to make good that loss plus 10 per cent. The company preparing the developer's environmental assessment told Clive Betts's office that the site was surveyed by ecologists in May 2026, so the works "would not degrade the ecological baseline". Both are describing the same thing: habitat that will be counted as if it were still there. It is not.

The land is still Green Belt and the Plan is still being examined. The Council has said it is still reviewing the information it holds, would welcome further evidence about the hedgerows, and has offered to register a formal complaint once the specific grounds are set out. Members of the campaign are gathering evidence and preparing those grounds.

What you can do

If you have photographs of Handsworth Beck and the hedgerow before the work began, from any year, or you saw the work being done, please reply to this email. Photographs with dates are the most useful.

Please keep watch, on this site and on every Green Belt site in the Plan. If you see machinery, clearance work, or low-loaders delivering diggers, note the date, time and location, and any registration plates or company names you can read. Photograph from a public place. Do not confront anyone. Then let us know. An allocation in a draft plan is not a planning permission.

We will send a separate email shortly on our meeting with the Council Leader that took place on 9 September and the consultation that is about to start.

-The Save S13 Green Belt Campaign