AN eminent environmentalist has backed campaigners fighting plans to build 225 homes on a Knutsford nature reserve.

Plans by landowner Dewscope Limited intends to sell a site east of Longridge to a developer if outline planning permission is granted has outraged the local community.

Around 100 people attended a public meeting to express their concern over the loss of the site, which has become a re-wilded meadow.

READ > Summer festival offers Knutsford families free day out this Saturday

The fields between Birkin Brook and Booths Mere have been left to return to nature and are now home to hundreds of species of flora and fauna, birds and insects.

Longridge is at the heart of five designated nature sites, two scheduled ancient monuments and includes a brook and two meres.

Last year, the land was designated a Local Wildlife Site and part of is also now officially deemed Designated Ancient Woodland.

Environmentalist Jonathon Porritt is an eminent campaigner on sustainable development.

For the last 30 years, he has provided strategic advice companies to deepen their understanding of the current environmental and climate crises.

Commenting on the Longridge proposal, Mr Porritt said: “The UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, with more than half of its biodiversity already lost to development and intensive agriculture.

“So, every time I read of a new housing development of this kind, with 225-houses replacing 500 trees, many precious hedgerows, and causing significant knock-on environmental damage, my heart shrivels just a little more.

“We cannot afford these terrible trade-offs any longer.

“All the developers’ talk of ‘biodiversity net-gain’, to be achieved through some sort of offsite mitigation, is clearly a load of cobblers, a sickeningly hypocritical deceit designed to cover up the damage that inevitably will be done.

“Which is why I wish everyone involved in Save Longridge Greenbelt the very best – more power to your collective green elbows!”

Mr Porritt is a former co-chairman of the Green Party and director of Friends of the Earth.

For nine years, he was chairman of the UK Sustainable Development Commission providing high level advice to Government Ministers. Jonathon was awarded a CBE in January 2000 for services to environmental protection.