Keep your hands off Long Ashton

VILLAGERS have issued a hands-off warning to property developers besieging their community.

The Hands Off Long Ashton (Hola) campaign has been launched to protect the green belt around the village.

Group spokesman Bill Roberts said: "Hola is an evolution of the Long Ashton group opposing the South Bristol Ring Road, and is the voice of the community wanting to retain the green belt and preserve our identity as a village separate from Bristol and surrounding villages."

The group believes the village faces a number of threats from developers eyeing up numerous parcels of land on all sides of the village.

The newly-formed group has arranged a protest meeting in Bristol on Saturday and also a meeting for more people to join on Tuesday, March 17, at Long Ashton Village Hall, at 7.30pm.

It has also launched a website, www.handsofflongashton.org.uk.

The biggest threat it sees is from plans for up to 10,000 homes proposed to be built at Ashton Vale.

But it also has concerns about the expansion of Bristol International Airport, Bristol City's proposed new stadium on the outskirts of the village and the outside possibility of 500 homes being built between Failand and Long Ashton.

Landtrust Development announced with great fanfare last week its proposals for development at Ashton Vale, a move described by North Somerset Council as premature, as the Regional Spatial Strategy has yet to be finalised.

The South West Regional Development Agency has also this week said it is at risk of being 'Bradley Stoke Mark Two'.

Landtrust's agent Baker Associates is currently exhibiting the plans at the Architecture Centre, Narrow Quay, Bristol.

And this is where Hola will be protesting on Saturday, from 1.30pm.

It will be joined by other groups opposed to development.

Landtrust's outline proposals can be viewed on its website www.ashton-park.co.uk.

Landtrust is a subsidiary of London merchant bank Close Brothers.

According to Companies House records, it was incorporated as Close Spare in March 2007 and changed its name only last June.

The Mercury revealed last year that Close Brothers had bought the freehold land occupied by Woodspring Golf Club, where the majority of development is planned, for more than £35 million.

According to Land Registry documents its lender is the troubled bank HBOS.

It also has options on farmland in the Ashton Vale area should development ever be given the go-ahead.

Its proposals include 10,000 homes, employment for 7,000 people and six new schools.

But according to diagrams on its website only a small portion of the land, little bigger than that allocated to a primary school, is being given over to employment uses, with the vast majority reserved for housing.