And what a turnout it was! 100 people joined us at Frome Rugby club on 15th September to talk about what Packsaddle Fields means to them and why we should oppose development on the fields. There was unanimous support from all 100 attendees that we should fight to save this historic community space and wildlife haven that has given so much joy to local families for over 40 years.

There was a huge strength of feeling and emotion in the room given that Somerset County Council had agreed to sell the land (subject to planning) without ANY proper consultation with local residents who had been enjoying this community space for so many years. The fact that much of the land had been cleared over the summer (effectively scuppering the ‘full season of ecology/wildlife surveys’ that the developers were supposed to have been undertaking), only added to the resolve of people in the room to fight the development. We are working to find out who gave the order to clear the land which will have significantly impacted long established wildlife habitats.

The meeting was hugely productive and we were able to gather a large number of reasons why development on this land is not appropriate as well as capture some personal insights on what the fields mean to local residents. A number of residents also volunteered to contribute financially to engage legal specialists in land and planning to work with us on our campaign to stop the development. We’ll be setting up a crowdfunding page for this in due course.

Towards the end of the meeting, we welcomed Casper from the Stop SGC campaign who are currently fighting a battle to stop a huge, inappropriate and highly speculative, development of 1,700 houses that would destroy hundreds of acres of greenbelt farmland around Frome. They desperately need as many people to oppose the application by the end of September. Click here to register your opposition.

A key next step for People for Packsaddle will be to grow our numbers from 100 supporters to several hundred. So please spread the word, and if you’re not on our mailing list, you can join it here.