Hi,

We are trying to raise money to purchase land back after a shifty sale and tree destruction. We need to purchase the land as the current owner is selling with planning permission for 2 houses to be built in the space.

We live in a town called Rochdale (north of Manchester) at the edge of a nature reserve called Healey Dell. The land in the picture was privately owned but used by the community and used heavily by nature especially during breeding season.

The small plot of land had several mature trees and was home to many bird species including a pair of tawny owls, a wood pecker, wood pigeons and blue tits to name a few. 12 properties, including my own, back onto this land and is a great area for children to play together away from the roads at the front of our properties.

This land was then sold at the start of May, the new owner is intending to build on this plat of land so he immediately had all the trees cut down. This happened on the first bank holiday in May, when none of the effected residents could do anything to find out what happened. The owner then put in planning permission to build 2 semi-detached homes on the land - one of which he is giving to his son. In this planning permission he said no trees where on the land and therefore no tree survey is required.

All our property deeds say this land cannot be built on, and the owner has now put the land back up for sale - with an ongoing planning application. In the sale advert the wording suggests that the land can be built on. The council planning department do not take into account the deeds of neighbouring land and despite a lot of objections from all neighbours still appear to be letting the application go ahead. We have tried pursuing the case with lawyers but the quotes for any continuing work has become ridiculous.

We are trying to raise funds to purchase the land back that auctions in less than 2 weeks, so we can stop the next owner from continuing the building application and causing unnecessary stress for the people effected. We would just love to get trees re-planted to give the land back to nature and the community. There are 12 properties directly joined with this land, some are rental and at least half are elderly. Raising money to support this has been difficult so we have turned to crowd support. Any help, no mater how small, will contribute to our cause and put an end to this battle that we keep loosing.

Thank you for reading

Andy + Joanne