HOPWAS HAYES WOOD (Hansard, 8 April 1974)

Major-General Jack d'AvigdorGoldsmid (Lichfield and Tamworth)
I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for allowing me time to speak on behalf of the preservation of Hopwas Hayes Wood and to make an attempt to prevent this famous beauty spot from being desecrated and turned into sand and gravel workings.
The village of Hopwas, with a population of about 600, lies in a rural area on the busy lateral A51 road which runs between Lichfield and Tamworth. The wood itself, on its southern edge, backs on to houses and the church on the northern side of the road and lies on Hopwas Hill. In shape it is roughly rectangular. In size it is about 1,000 yards east to west and about a mile north to south. It straddles Hopwas Hill which rises to a height of over 350 feet and forms a landmark which can be seen for miles around. It has immense landscape value.
The trees in the wood vary from fir to pine, oak, chestnut, alder, willow and silver birch. The wood is famed among ornithologists for the large variety of birds which nest there in the springtime. It is also known as a resting place for migratory birds during the migration seasons.
The wood itself has a bridle path running through it. It has tracks and rides and for many years has been a popular resort for walkers and ramblers who use the area to get a little fresh air and exercise. The people in the area exercise themselves, their children and their dogs. It is very popular with riders.
Part of the wood is in the danger area of the grenade and rifle ranges belonging to Whittington Barracks, the home of the Mercian depot of the Prince of Wales Regiment. When the ranges are being used, the wood has to be closed. But the times and days of firing are published in the local Press, and suitable arrangements have been made with the military authorities to ensure that the bridle path is open each weekend on at least one day, if not on both. Within five miles of the wood there are no fewer than four other sand and gravel workings.
122 Tamworth lies two miles to the southeast of the wood. It is a town with a population of more than 40,000. The number is growing rapidly because the town has been chosen as one of those to accept overspill from the Birmingham conurbation.
Everyone will realise and appreciate the necessity to retain places in the country close to industrialised and urban areas where those who are so inclined may go to take exercise in pleasant surroundings.
Hopwas Hayes Wood forms a country park and it has for that reason great attractions. A study of a one-inch Ordnance Survey map reveals remarkably few marks in green denoting woods, except perhaps for Cannock Chase which lies some 10 miles to the north-west.
The history of the events which have led up to the present situation is as follows. In 1965, an area of 190 acres of the wood was purchased by the Birmingham Sand and Gravel Company. Three years later the Staffordshire County Council produced its Sand and Gravel Review showing its requirements for workings for the period 1968–1981. Hopwas Hayes Wood was not included on that list.
Discussions followed between the company and the county council. The company said that within that period it wished to start work. As a result of those conversations the county council resolved … that the County Council cannot at this stage, for technical reasons, allocate the land at Hopwas. The County Council, however, would have no objection in principle to the working of either the site or part of the site (as may be agreed at that time) although any planning application would have to be considered on its merits at the time it is made. There followed at the end of 1968 a public inquiry, and five years later, in 1973, the Secretary of State published his proposed modifications to the Sand and Gravel Review. Modification No. 17 applied to Hopwas Hayes Wood and said: … in addition to the principal areas allocated above, the County Council have no objection in principle to working at the following sites. In each case planning applications for the working will be refused or granted on the planning merits prevailing at the time. Those proposals were reported to the Staffordshire County Council in October 1973 and advertised in the local Press 123 in December of that year, whereupon there were objections from the then Tamworth Borough Council, the then Lichfield Rural District Council, the Hopwas Parish Council, the Council for the Protection of Rural England and the Tamworth Society. In addition there was a petition from at least 200 local inhabitants.
I cannot believe that any official initially making a decision that the area could be converted to sand and gravel workings can ever have seen this site. I was there on Saturday and walked round it. It would give me enormous pleasure to take the Minister there if he would care to see it for himself.
Last year, 1973, was Plant a Tree Year. Surely it must be wrong one year later to condone the destruction of trees, many of them centuries old.

§ Mr. Ernest G. Perry (Battersea, South)
This is chop them down year.

§ Major-General d'Avigdor-Goldsmid
I hope not. Apart from the wanton damage to trees, hill and landscape and the deprivation of amenities and pleasure for a number of people, any operation of sand and gravel working in the area on whatever scale would be bound to cause distress to local inhabitants in terms of desecration, dust, dirt and noise. Of course, this adds enormously to the traffic burden in the area, which is already bad, and, in Tamworth, almost intolerable because of the lack of a by-pass.
I fully appreciate that no action can be taken unless planning permission is given, but, on behalf of my constituents, I ask the Minister whether some modification can be made to Modification No. 17 and whether he will be willing to follow the example originally set by Staffordshire County Council and to remove Hopwas Hayes Wood from the list of possible sand and gravel working sites.

§ The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Gordon Oakes)
I thank the hon. and gallant Member for Lichfield and Tamworth (Major-General d'Avigdor-Goldsmid) for raising this matter. I know that it is a subject very dear to his heart, because in the last Parliament he was about to raise it when events overtook him with the General 124 Election, so at the first available opportunity he has raised it in this Parliament.
This debate is essentially about an objection to a proposed modification to the Staffordshire County Development Plan which was established under the Town and Country Planning Act 1962. The modification resulted from an objection to the submitted plan. The plan, the modification and the objection are still before my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for determination.
As the hon. and gallant Gentleman said, Hopwas Hayes Wood is an area of mature private woodlands, abounding with wild life, approximately one mile in area, close to Tamworth. I will certainly, if the opportunity ever presents itself, take up his offer to show me the wood and the beauties of this area, which he so eloquently described, when I am next in Staffordshire. Twice a week I travel through his constituency, much of which is very beautiful. I do so, I regret to say, in a train at 100 miles an hour, but I get the opportunity of looking through the window at the lovely countryside that he is privileged to represent. This is a matter in which I have an interest because I pass through the area.

§ Major-General d'Avigdor-Goldsmid
From the train window the hon. Gentleman can see the hill and the wood.

§ Mr. Oakes
Indeed, I looked for it this morning, but I could not distinguish which wood it was amongst the many woods and hilltops there. However, I assure the hon. and gallant Gentleman that I peered out of the window to try to distinguish this particular wood.
Two bridle paths and some footpaths run through the wood, though not, as I will explain later, through the part subject to debate. The wood is located on a geological formation called the Bunter Pebble Beds which is the most important of the three sources of sand and gravel in the West Midlands, the others being river and glacial deposits. The major part of the Bunter Pebble Beds in the West Midlands occurs in Staffordshire where working is concentrated in three areas; namely, between Stoke and Cheadle, Cannock Chase, and between Birmingham, Lichfield and Tamworth. Hopwas Hayes Wood is situated in this last-mentioned area.
125 As I am sure the hon. and gallant Gentleman is aware, Staffordshire is much the largest gravel producer in the West Midlands, supplying material to meet the growing demand for building aggregates not only within this region, but to other regions, notably the North-West. Unfortunately, much of the Bunter outcrop stands high and is covered with woodland and this, not surprisingly, heightens the conflict of interest between landscape conservationists, on the one hand, and gravel extraction, on the other.
Because of the circumstances I have just described, the selection of locations for gravel workings, their after-treatment and the balancing of supply, demand and landscape interests have been one of the major elements of concern in Staffordshire's development plans and led to the county review of this element of its 1962 Act county plan. This review was published and submitted for consideration by the then Minister for Housing and Local Government on 14th March 1968.
A public inquiry into objections to the review plan was held in November-December 1968. As the hon. and gallant Gentleman said, one of the objections was by the Birmingham Sand and Gravel Company on the grounds that land at Hopwas Hayes Wood had not been allocated for gravel extraction. There were, at that time, no corresponding amenity objections, but I presume that was because the significance of the company's objection was not fully appreciated at that time in the neighbourhood.
The objection site does not cover the whole area of the wood, only the southern part, and, though bounded by the two public bridleways I mentioned earlier, no public footpath crosses it. At the time of the public inquiry, the company did not anticipate wanting to work the site for a number of years as its existing quarry at Common Barn, Hints, which is situated one mile south-west of Hopwas, had a life of 10 to 12 years.
The county council, in evidence at the inquiry, stated that it was unable to allocate this site and other similar sites because, until technical details had been gone into, it could not define boundaries precisely. Instead, it suggested that the review written statement could be amended by an insertion to the effect that 126 the workings were acceptable in principal. The company was willing to settle for this, and the inspector has recommended in his report that the written statement should be modified accordingly.
Since the public inquiry, there have been discussions and consultations aimed at modifying the proposals in the submitted review plan. To meet the objections lodged and changing circumstances, a list of proposed modifications was published on 7th and 14th December 1973 together with extracts from the inspector's report. As the hon. and gallant Gentleman said, the list included a modification —No. 17—requested by the Staffordshire County Council to indicate its agreement in principle to working at certain sites which, for technical reasons, could not be precisely defined. The essence of the modification is that permission to work these sites would be refused or granted on the planning merits prevailing at the time of application. The schedule of undefined sites included the area of Hopwas Hayes Wood.
To date, 12 objections, including two petitions, to the proposed modifications have been received by the Department. Ten of these and the petitions, signed by 117 Hopwas residents and 312 Tamworth schoolchildren, are concerned with Hopwas Hayes Wood.
I am glad to see that the children in Tamworth, when they feel that their local environment is threatened—leaving aside whether their fears are justified—are prepared to try to do something about it. This augurs well for the quality of life in Staffordshire. It is a trend that I find in my constituency, and in the country as a whole—that young people are greatly concerned with the preservation of their environment—and I wish them all the luck in the world when they take action, such as the Tamworth schoolchildren have taken, presenting petitions or, in some cases, appearing at public inquiries. It is their future, the future of the areas in which they live and their future life which are affected, and they above any of us should have a voice in the future environment.
Among the objections my Department has received is one from the Nature Conservancy Council, which feels that the wild life interest of Hopwas Hayes Wood is considerable and the ornithological and 127 entomological interests are of exceptional local importance. I can well understand the fears of objectors in this complicated procedural process, but I should like to stress that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has not yet reached a decision on the submitted plan, its modification, or on the objections submitted. He is still considering all the proposed modifications which spring from the public inquiry into the submitted plan and the objections to these modifications.
I can assure the House that in this he is not only conscious of the need to keep in view the building aggregate demand and supply position in the West Midlands and adjacent regions but, in this particular case, also to give full weight to the amenity value of Hopwas Hayes Wood to the people of Hopwas and of the town of Tamworth, which, as a result of agreements with Birmingham under the Town Development Act, is growing fast.
It may well be that the objectors to the modification proposals are under the impression that gravel workings in the whole of the 190-acre site, which were the subject of the original objection by the Birmingham Sand and Gravel Company, are imminent. For the reasons I have already given, this cannot be. However, even if—and this decision has by no means been reached at this stage—my 128 right hon. Friend the Secretary of State were to approve the proposed modification to the review plan, their fears should be allayed.
First, the gravel in this areas is unlikely to be needed for a number of years ; secondly, the modifications to the plan now under consideration merely define it as an area within which the Staffordshire County Council is prepared, in principle, to consider gravel working ; and thirdly, if a gravel working application is eventually submitted, it will be considered in the light of the planning merits of the particular case and any other material considerations prevailing at that time and, in particular, its detailed effects on its locality.
However, because of all the objections to the proposed modifications and the interest shown in this matter by the hon. and gallant Gentleman, and his proper persistence on behalf of his constituents and the amenities of the area, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State now considers that it will be necessary to hold a further public inquiry. This will be held on 25th June 1974 and all interested parties, including the hon. and gallant Gentleman, will be notified.