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Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2002 19:46:06 +0100
From: worthing@eco-action.org
To: unrest@lycos.co.uk
Subject: porkbolter bumper spring issue (44)

Don't trash Titnore! - protest action 26th May 2002

OPPONENTS of the massive development off Titnore Lane have been attracting heavy support within Worthing (Sussex, UK) and beyond. Stalls have been held, leaflets and posters produced, petitions raised and meetings organised.

Their case has also been backed by Ferring Council, which fears the development would cause flooding of the River Rife, which runs through their village. The big event for Titnore campaigners will be a protest on Sunday May 26, which starts at 2pm outside the Titnore Lane entrance to Northbrook College, Durrington - by the junction with the A259 Littlehampton Road and not far north of Goring By Sea railway station.

More info from the POW! website -

http://www.worthinga27.freeserve.co.uk     (email: pow@worthinga27.freeserve.co.uk)

or on our own website -

http://www.eco-action.org/porkbolter

or by writing to - PO Box 4144, Worthing BN14 7NZ

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other environmental news from Worthing

Hands off the Downs!

A BIG protest against plans to build 90 houses on downland west of Lyons Farm, Worthing, was staged by residents. More than 100 people with placards and banners took part in the demo in Beeches Avenue, which gained prominent coverage in the local press. The proposal to build on the open space behind Beeches Avenue and Pines Avenue was made by an inspector’s report into the Worthing Local Plan. Ironically, his argument was that it would reduce the number of houses planned for the Titnore site in West Durrington - as if we have to accept the destruction of our countryside by greedy developers at EITHER end of our town!

The protest was also notable for the appearance of Tory MP Tim Loughton. Like other Tories, he has developed a great love for the environment now the Labour Party can be blamed for the relentless spread of the capitalist cancer over our countryside. He condemned the idea of "just building more houses regardless of our environment and the wishes of local people". Presumably Tim picked up this commendably ethical view of life while working as a fund manager and later director of City of London finance company Fleming Private Asset Management. Or perhaps through his membership of the Centre for Policy Studies, a right-wing capitalist think tank founded by Margaret Thatcher and Keith Joseph to look at issues such as privatisation, free trade and education "reform". Or of the Selsdon Group, which "promotes the case for free-market policies within the Conservative Party". Are property developers not part of Mr Loughton’s free market vision? Or are we being naive in expecting any politician's private opinions to correlate in any way with his public pronouncements to the gullible ballot-fodder?

Views of the road lobby

BRIAN Lynn, Conservative leader of Worthing Borough Council, thinks that running a dirty great motorway across the beautiful South Downs behind Cissbury Ring would be a great idea. He reckons a massive new A27 road in the countryside earmarked for National Park status, some of it in a tunnel, would bring "environmental benefits" (Worthing Guardian February 8). He cannot understand the objection that this would desecrate the landscape and feels a motorway would "open up views of the Downs for those who travel along it" (Worthing Guardian, February 22). So presumably he would endorse a new six-lane road through his own back garden to "open up views" of the Lynn residence?

road protests 2002   |   road protests (current)   |   movement links