On 14 October this petition will be opened in Downing Street. What will the Prime Minister see?

On Wednesday 14 October we'll walk up Downing Street carrying this petition with all our names printed inside, and every one of them from someone who decided this wood was worth thirty seconds of their time.

We've been thinking about what happens next. Somebody in that building will open the folder. They'll see a number, and it's impressive. But a number can't say what it's like to walk in under the trees on the first cold morning of autumn. It can't describe the memories of the children who learned to climb there, or the feelings of someone who's known those paths longer than some of the houses have stood nearby. It can't explain why a town of 26,000 people has spent its summer knocking on doors and delivering leaflets for Weston Big Wood.

Only you can do that. And we'd like you to.

Imagine the folder with your page in it.

Alongside the signatures, we want to hand in something Downing Street won't have seen from Portishead before: a collection of letters, one page each, from the people who actually know this place. In your own words, in your own handwriting if you like. Not a template, as a template would be the opposite of the point.

Picture two hundred of them. The retired teacher who has walked the same loop for thirty years. The family who scattered a father's ashes among the trees. The seven-year-old who drew the badgers. The couple who moved here because of the view from The Downs and have never once regretted it. Put that in front of the Prime Minister and it stops being a planning matter. It becomes a place, with people in it.

If you were writing yours, you'd probably want to say where you live, because it's the local voice that carries the weight here. You'd say what the wood means in your life and why the Downs beside it should stay open. When that Green Belt boundary was tested at a public inquiry in 1987, the Inspector called the landscape by the wood "particularly sensitive" and warned that excluding the land would "allow development to be taken too close to the wood". That was the reason it was left open. Nearly forty years later the same fields are lined up for 400 homes. If you think the next generation deserves to inherit what we did, that's the sentence to write.

When it's ready, it comes to us here:

✉️ Email: info@swbwportishead.co.uk

✉️ Or post to co/ Cllr Paul Gardner, The Folk Hall, 95 High St, Portishead, Bristol BS20 6PR

📅 By Wednesday 1 October

Typed or handwritten, a photo of a page is fine. Children's letters and drawings are more than welcome. Put your name and your Portishead street or postcode on the page itself, so it stands on its own when printed. Only include what you'd be happy for Downing Street to read, and tell us if we may quote from it publicly - if you don't say, we won't.

There's a version of 14 October where we hand in a list. And there's a version where we hand in a town. The difference is a page from you, written this week while the thought is fresh.

We'll carry it to the door. Thank you, as ever, for sticking with us.

Tom and Susan

Save Weston Big Wood — Portishead residents