You've signed. Here's the part that actually decides it.
Thank you. In the first 24 hours 1078 of us signed up to protect Weston Big Wood, and that number is doing real work — it is the clearest evidence anyone has that this isn't a handful of neighbours objecting. It's a town.
Here is where things genuinely stand, in plain terms.
There is no planning application for Tower Farm or Black Rock. Not yet. But what is happening instead is bigger, quieter, and far more important.
North Somerset's new Local Plan — the document that decides where houses go for the next fifteen years — is being examined right now by two independent government Inspectors. Both sites are in it. If they stay in, the argument is largely over: once a site is written into an adopted plan, the principle of building on it is settled, and stopping it later becomes very hard indeed.
So this campaign isn't fighting a planning application. It is trying to get both sites taken out of the plan, so there is never an application to fight. That is the whole game, and it is being decided over the next couple of months.
Two things you can do this week. Both take about ten minutes. Both are already written for you.
1. WRITE TO OUR MP, SADIK AL-HASSAN. MPs count letters from constituents. A short email from a named resident carries far more weight than a signature, and it can be raised directly with ministers and with the Council. The letter sets out why "grey belt" has been wrongly applied to land sitting right against a Site of Special Scientific Interest and ancient woodland.
Send to: sadik.alhassan.mp@parliament.uk
Copy in: savewestonbigwood@gmail.com
2. ASK THE COUNCIL TO LOOK AGAIN AT IT'S ENVIRONMENTAL EVIDENCE. On 24 July, North Somerset Council decided that a full environmental impact assessment was not needed for Tower Farm — even though Natural England had warned of possible significant adverse effects on seven protected sites. That decision matters, because the environmental evidence sitting behind the Local Plan is exactly what the Inspectors will be weighing. The second letter asks the Council to think again.
Send to: Jason.Mak@n-somerset.gov.uk
Copy in: matt.lenny@n-somerset.gov.uk & savewestonbigwood@gmail.com
Quote reference: 26/P/0300/EA1
BOTH LETTERS, READY TO COPY, ARE HERE: Letter Template & Instructions
Add a few lines of your own if you can. One sentence about why this place matters to you is worth much more than a perfect paragraph. Then it's done.
Weston Big Wood is ancient woodland and a Site of Special Scientific Interest. It cannot be replanted, relocated or replaced. The open land around it is what protects its edge.
If you send one of these letters, you will have done more than most people ever do. If you send both, and pass this on to one neighbour, you will have done even more again.
Thank you for making a difference - let's be nature’s voice!
P.S. We expect there will be one formal moment when anyone — not only people who commented last year — can write directly to the Inspectors about these two sites. We don't know the date yet. We will tell you the moment it opens, and we will give you everything you need to take part. FULL CAMPAIGN PACK