What your signatures have already done — and the ten minutes we need this week.
Since we started this petition, you have taken it past an amazing 3,470 signatures! We’d love to get to 5,000+ by next weekend.
Here is what has been happening behind the scenes.
We have gone through North Somerset Council's own documents, line by line, and published what we found. In its formal response to objections, the Council wrote that there are no Sites of Special Scientific Interest in the vicinity of Tower Farm, and twice described Weston Big Wood as "a local wildlife site". Weston Big Wood is a national SSSI. Natural England says so. The Council's own Green Belt reports say so. The very same document, answering a different objection, says so. We are not accusing anyone of anything — the likeliest explanation is an error copied from one document into the next. But the protection at the heart of this case has been recorded wrongly in a formal planning document, and it needs correcting.
We have also established where the "grey belt" label came from. Not from the developer. It first appears in the Council's own evidence base, published on 30 October 2025 — and on the very same day, the Council's own consultants warned that the constraints on this land "may make it unsuitable to be considered grey belt" and that further assessment would be required.
On 24 July, nearly five months after its legal deadline, the Council decided that no full Environmental Impact Assessment is needed for up to 400 homes on Tower Farm. That decision went against its own flood authority, which recommended a full assessment twice, against the Internal Drainage Board, against Portishead Town Council, and against the developer's own ecologist, who wrote that significant environmental effects "cannot be ruled out". We have lodged a formal complaint about it.
Alongside that, we have published a plain-English evidence pack and an action flyer, written to our MP, submitted a parliamentary petition, and briefed councillors and the Avon Wildlife Trust. Our MP has confirmed in writing that national policy says development likely to harm an SSSI should not normally be permitted, and can only go ahead where the benefits clearly outweigh both the harm to the site and the wider harm to the national network of protected sites. That is the test. We do not believe it has been applied here.
Now the ask — ten minutes, this week.
North Somerset Council has a formal complaints process, and anyone affected can use it. Please make a complaint about the decision that no Environmental Impact Assessment is required for Tower Farm, reference 26/P/0300/EA1.
✍️ Complain to North Somerset Council
Filling in the form. Log in, or register (it's easy). The form asks seven things and takes about ten minutes. Here is what to put:
Q1) Subject of your complaint — EIA screening decision 26/P/0300/EA1, land at Tower Farm, next to Weston Big Wood.
Q2) Who is this complaint for — Myself.
Q3) Full details of your complaint and how you think it should be resolved — this is the important box, and please write it in your own words. Identical letters get treated as one complaint and answered once, so two sentences of your own carry more weight than a page copied from someone else. The points worth making are that the council decided on 24 July that a development of up to 400 homes beside a Site of Special Scientific Interest and ancient woodland does not need a full Environmental Impact Assessment; that the decision came nearly five months after the legal deadline for making it; and that it was made against the advice of the council's own drainage authority, the Internal Drainage Board, Portishead Town Council, and the developer's own ecologist, who said harm to the wood could not be ruled out.
Say how it affects you personally. The council can decline complaints from people with no connection to the matter, so say that you live in Portishead, that you walk in the wood, that your children go to school on The Downs — whatever is true for you. One line is enough.
Q4) Which service does your complaint relate to — open the dropdown, find Planning and Building Control, and choose Planning.
Q5) Supporting files — leave blank, or attach the environmental pack from the evidence folder if you want to.
Q6) I've already spoken to someone at the council about this issue — answer honestly. For most people that is no.
Q7) What outcome do you want — ask for the screening decision to be reconsidered and a fresh screening opinion issued, and ask for your complaint to be placed on the public case file for 26/P/0300/EA1. You will get an acknowledgement and a reference number.
If you would rather send it by email, the action flyer in our evidence folder has a ready-made letter and the officer's address, with a space for your own reasons. The flyer also has a letter to our MP about the grey belt classification, which is the right home for that argument — the classification is a Local Plan matter and the complaints team cannot touch it, but a Minister can be asked whether pasture beside an ancient woodland SSSI is really what grey belt was meant for.
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One last thing, and it makes more difference than you might think. Anyone aged 16 or over can sign — all you need is an email address — and everyone in the house can sign in their own name. It is not one signature per household. If you have signed but your partner, your teenagers, your parents or your neighbours have not, please pass this on. The number is what makes people outside Portishead take this seriously.
Thank you for signing, and for sticking with this! We will report back on what the complaints produce.
Also, we will be at the Portishead Town Council stand at the Eat Portishead festival on Saturday 8th August, located around the Marina and Parish Wharf in Portishead. Please come and find us!
Save Weston Big Wood — Portishead residents