RESIDENTS are installing CCTV cameras to protect woodland near their homes.

People living behind Church Road in the leafy Smithills area fear the protected trees behind their houses could be felled by would-be developers.

They are acting ahead of the land being put up for auction by Pugh and Co in Manchester on Tuesday.

The one-acre patch of land, which is also bounded by Orwell Road, Bracondale Avenue and Hazelwood Road, is owned by property developer Leigh Brothers, based at the Atria, in Spa Road.

The land, which has been valued at £5,000, has scores of trees subject to Tree Preservation Orders (TPOs), some more than 100 years old.

And it also provides a haven for bats, owls, hedgehogs and other wildlife.

The newly-formed Save Our Woodland residents’ group said the rural character of the area is why most of them bought their homes.

But they fear the trees could be illegally felled by parties interested in developing the site for housing and have installed two CCTV cameras as a deterrent and to collect evidence of any wrongdoing.

Save Our Woodland spokesman Nick Jackson said: “We are acting to install CCTV and taking other security measures in order to prevent any would-be developer from buying the land and building on it.

“Although there are up to 60 TPOs in place, we have heard of instances where trees have been ‘accidentally’ felled.

“Of course, once this has happened, who is to say what could happen to the land?

“We are not a bunch of NIMBYs. We are genuinely trying to preserve a beautiful and historic asset and a haven for wildlife.”

And Mr Jackson added that the group had approached Pugh and Co about putting in a pre-auction bid for the land, but the high level of interest meant it was bound to go under the hammer.

He said: “Any development would be worth a lot of money because of where it is.

“We are worried, as a group of residents, that someone will come along and some of the trees will get mysteriously chopped down, or mysteriously get some disease. And before long a planning application will go in for possible development.”

Residents believe there were plans to develop the site in 2001 when a planning application was lodged to fell a large number of mature trees for health and safety reasons.

But the application was refused on the grounds that most of the trees were healthy and posed no danger to members of the public.