PROTESTORS have launched a campaign to save an Oldbury green corridor after they woke up to find bulldozers on land behind their homes.

Residents of Titford Road are now organising petitions calling for the site to be saved from development into industrial units.

Phil Shakespeare, a local resident, is joining forces with his neighbours to protect the green space which has stood empty after mining ended on the site over 100 years ago.

Saying the development would destroy a valuable wildlife habitat, he explained local people only knew of the plans when workmen arrived to do ground testing.

“I woke up one morning to see workmen and bulldozers on the land.

“After speaking to them they told me they were doing groundwork to test if the land was suitable to build on and that was the first we knew of the development.”

Mr Shakespeare said the work began only days after developers Canmoor Ltd submitted a plans to Sandwell Council for two industrial units of 7,503 square metres with car parking, a service yard and loading docks. 

In a statement accompanying the application, developers said: “The proposed development will make efficient and effective use of the site and create additional employment floorspace, attracting investment to and creating jobs in the borough.” 

But Mr Shakespeare has said the site is home to badgers, foxes and bird species such as common buzzards and it helps mitigate air pollution from the nearby M5.

He added: “I can’t step back and watch it be flattened. We are losing our green areas, we are demolishing everything that keeps us alive. Politicians say they are protecting green spaces but they stomping all over them.

“The thing that is so abhorrent about the Oldbury wildlife corridor is we literally have –  surrounding that hundred year old green zone – abandoned factories.

“And that’s what I find disgusting, that they are going to squash the habitat of wildlife to build more industrial brown zones.”

He has called for local councillors and MPs to support the campaign and said the campaign had already won a small victory after the council agreed to move the deadline for submissions and objections from August 14  to the first week of September.  

Residents are hoping a public meeting with council planning officials will provide  more information on the proposed development and how they can challenge the application.