RESIDENTS are continuing their fight to protect land used as a park for decades, from a housing developer.

Since the summer, people in Blackhill, Consett, have been locked in a struggle with local developer Strathmore Homes, which wants to build executive homes on the Blue Heaps.

The firm withdrew its planning application for the scheme last month after the Durham County Council's highways department objected to the proposed vehicle access to the estate.

But the company has also bought the old Derwentside College complex, next to the Blue Heaps, and has applied to cut down 65 trees on the site.

Residents fear this could result in a new road access and new planning application.

Derwentside District Council has issued a Tree Preservation Order to protect the woodland and is expected to confirm this with a more detailed order at a development control meeting in Consett Civic Centre this afternoon.

Protestor Greg Coltman said: "We feel they want to do this not to maintain the woods, but to put more houses on, or to create a new access road onto the Blue Heaps."

Planning officer Simon le Jeune said the order was "99 per cent likely" to be approved, but said Strathmore could re-apply.

"We are not against good wood management or the taking out of some trees if there is a sound need to do so," he said.

James Johnston, director of Strathmore Homes, said some of the trees were rotten and needed to come down to protect the public.

"We have asked whether this order relates to those trees that are in a poor or dangerous condition," he said.

"We are worried that one will fall down on a member of the public. This has no bearing on the area for housing development, as the woodland was never part of that."

He said that residents would be excluded from the area if the order continued.

"If the trees are going to be left unsafe, we will have to protect ourselves by not letting the public anywhere near them," he said.