This afternoon the petition passed 10,000 signatures!!
On the first day, 1,078 of you signed. By 8th August it was 5,000. Now more than ten thousand people have asked the Prime Minister to step in and save Weston Big Wood. Every name, every share and every comment has brought us here, and we're very grateful.
What your signatures will do:
1) At Downing Street. On Wednesday 14th October we'll hand the petition in at Number 10, together with the paper signatures from our Folk Hall drop-ins and children's picture pages. The Government has the power to step into a council's Local Plan. We'll be asking it to look hard at these two allocations while the examination is still running. Every signature added before then goes with it.
2) At the examination. The Planning Inspectors decide the Local Plan on evidence, not on numbers, and that evidence is being prepared carefully. What the petition adds is scale. We've shared it with Portishead Town Council so the Council can set out, at the start of its hearing statement, how many people have put their name to protecting this wood. When the Inspectors reach Tower Farm, they'll know it isn't a handful of neighbours with a view. It's a whole community, and more besides.
It has worked before.
Last year, two small Warwickshire villages, Bearley and Wilmcote, found themselves earmarked in the South Warwickshire Local Plan for a new town of up to 10,000 homes on Green Belt beside them. Residents formed an action group. They held packed public meetings and marched. They ran a petition in the local pub for people who couldn't manage online and knocked on doors to help older neighbours have their say. (We've got our local volunteers and Portishead Town Council drop in sessions - see their Facebook page).
In May this year, Stratford District Council chose a different site, and Bearley and Wilmcote came off the list. Numbers and evidence together made the difference. That is exactly the combination we're building here.
The hearings
Hearings open on Tuesday 10th November at the Town Hall in Weston-super-Mare. Tower Farm is currently scheduled for Tuesday 8th December. The details are HERE.
Three things you can still do:
1) Share the petition before 9th October. Send the link to five people who love the wood as much as you do.
2) If you commented on the Local Plan last autumn (October to December 2025) and want to take part in the hearings, email info@lpexams.co.uk by 5pm on Friday 9th October, saying you'd like to attend the Tower Farm session. You need to do this even if you ticked "yes" at the time.
3) Come and watch. The hearings are open to the public. A full room on 8 December would show the Inspectors how much this wood matters to Portishead.
Thank you, all ten thousand of you!
Tom & Susan
Save Weston Big Wood