Council deforests beauty spot to combat dogging

More than 6,000 conifers which occupied a "stunning beauty spot" alongside the A666 in Lancashire have been felled to combat rampant dogging on the 12-hectare site. According to the Daily Mail, the council used a health and safety smokescreen to justify clearing the site on the outskirts of Darwen, claiming that the 60-year- …

[Code Monkey]

"attracting rainfall to the area"

Sorry enviro-spokeswonk but I grew up near Darwen and while it has its share of environmental problems, a lack of rain is not one of them!

[Anonymous Coward]

Rainfall?

Attracting rainfall? I don't think there's often a shortage of that round there. Oh, so that proves it works then. Just like the marmalade I smear on my front door to keep the kangaroos away.

[Paul 4]

Marmalade

With or without bits? Important people need to know!

[Cliff]

Keeping an eye on doggers

Aye, easy gag there, but it suggests a wider solution - CCTV pay-per-view live web feeds. You can watch a fat hag funbling through a windscreen live, as it happens, blow by blow (easier gag).

[S Larti]

talk about

can't see the wood for the trees!

[scottboy]

Riddle

If a threesome falls in the middle of a forest, does it make a sound?

[Richard IV]

Answer

Yes, yes, yes!

[Euchrid]

A policeman's lot is not a happy one

"It's far too early to tell if cutting the trees back has had any impact on the dogging situation, but we'll be paying regular attention to the area."

Is this out of duty or pleasure?

[Alex King]

Obviously stupid...

... but if I were to say so, I'd be agreeing with the taxpayers alliance, which is never a good thing. Therefore, chop the buggers down!

[Marvin the Martian]

The only good tree is a dead tree

Health & Safety risks, every last one of 'em. Start grinding!

[Anonymous Coward]

"If the law was enforced properlY"

Is dogging against the law?

[buckie]

Not so much a Friend of the Earth...

as a passing acquaintance?

Brian Jackson, of Friends of the Earth, described the felling as "absurd". He insisted: "The conifer trees in this area are very valuable in providing windbreaks and attracting rainfall to the area."

As any miserably sodden Lancastrian will tell you, orography takes care of attracting more than enough rainfall to the foothills of the Pennines without the need for tree-bothering environ-mentalists helping the matter along, thankyewverymuch.

[The Indomitable Gall]

Must have been awful....

It must have been awful for the Daily Mail hacks. How do you report this? Is it a victory against corrupt perversions or is in the wanton destruction of our natural heritage by nanny state gone mad?

They were pulled so hard both ways that they couldn't even bring themselves to write an article and had to resort to stapling a dozen quotes together.

Oh, the humanity!

Won't somebody think of the Daily Mail hacks?

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting they should choose that spot..

I believe that particular area is predominantly inhabited by men looking to get off with each other, rather than opposite sex dogging. If they're even handed, next they'll be cracking down on the other spots where they're not having gay sex.

It's so not my sort of thing, but if the doggers keep it quiet and away from everyone else I can't say I'm fussed. I did have my suspicions about another car parking spot near Darwen, where upon returning from a walk there were four or five cars with both men and women waiting with the side lights on. If I'm ever returning when it's properly dark, I think I'll take a torch so that they've got the opportunity to hide away.

[john loader]

Dogging?

I thought dogging was jogging with my Labrador until i discovered Smirnoff

[Anonymous Coward]

"natural broad leaf trees"

As opposed to "unnatural broad leaf trees" I suppose.

[Alan Esworthy]

"natural broad leaf trees"

Theoretically, as distinguished from natural broad leaf non-trees. Theoretically.

[breakfast]

Ents and dryads?

Also perhaps supernatural broadleaf trees?

[TeeCee]

broadleaf?

Isn't that the stuff they make Thionite out of?

Mine's the one with the pockets full of sugarlumps to bribe the Flats with.

[Andy 21]

Fail

Brings a whole new meaningto getting wood !!

[Anonymous Coward]

For fucks sake.

I mean, really, how can people be so damn stupid? I really do wonder sometimes.

If its doing harm to someone (though I cant think of who, given the pictures look like its in the middle of nowhere) then police it, otherwise where is the damn problem? Seriously, what harm is it doing to anyone?

[Beelzeebub]

Do bears shag in the woods?

Totally agree, AC. Love is good, war is bad. ...ahem, slightly out of character methinks, must go to rehab :-)

[Andrew_F]

All angle, no news?

"the conifers were commercial trees"

Does this mean they could have chopped them down without giving a reason other than normal tree farming, and this wouldn't have been news?

[breakfast]

reduced visibility

Presumably that will be somewhat disappointing to a section of the sites regular nighttime visitors as well...

[Adam Christie-Grant]

It's an ongoing problem and very worrying for members of the public?

Really? And there was me thinking these people shaggin in the woods were members of the public.....

[krs]

in reply

I think it's more the case of public members that's the issue here.

[Duncan Hothersall]

TaxPayers' Alliance are scum

Even El Reg has succumbed to the torrent of press releases from the so-called "TaxPayers' Alliance" which is in fact nothing more than a Tory party campaign group which has had huge success in filling newspapers with its version of the truth over the past few years. Please don't collude in their misinformation campaign.

[Alan Esworthy]

Bitter disappointment

Those photos are only "after" photos. Phooey.

[John Savard]

Trees Take Time to Grow

Evidently you need tough new legislation so that anyone proposing to cut down trees in an area where they add to the natural beauty of the landscape needs to go through a proper approval process where real scrutiny is given to the reasons behind the action.

And to start things off, the trees that were cut down should have to be replaced, at the expense of the local government that made the mistake of authorizing this, by fully mature trees so that the area immediately looks as good as it did before. At least from the road, so they don't all need to be replaced. The area past those trees can then be monitored by CCTV so that police can be swiftly dispatched in the event of untoward behavior.

[Leo Davidson]

Worried? Me?

"It's an ongoing problem and very worrying for members of the public."

Who is it worrying and why?

Oh no someone is having sex, I am so very worried!

I suppose if you have kids you might not want them to witness people shagging as they're walking through the forest in the middle of nowhere but I'm not really following the implication that people having sex outside are somehow a serious danger to the public. They're not raping random people as they pass by or anything like that. Are they leaving jizz everywhere or something? What's the deal?

I guess if I had to walk past a load of shaggers every day on my way to the local shop I might find that annoying, like I'd find someone blasting out crap music annoying, but still not worrying.

[ian 22]

Beauty

As a lumberjack, I think the place looks much nicer.

"I'm a lumberjack and I don't care..."

[The Other Steve]

Presumably ...

... the reason for cutting back the trees is so that the consenting adults shagging in the woods will now be visible, and lacking privacy will ... well, they'll find somewhere else, won't they.

But if that's the case, then the trees were preventing anyone from seeing them ?

And how many more tress will have to be cut down at the new spot that will doubtless be appropriated ? Are we going to cut all the trees in the UK down just in case some unsavoury type is using as cover for a tawdry but otherwise harmless activity which might upset the kind of retards who read the Daily Mail - who let's face it spend their entire miserable existence righteously seething about one thing or another.

Or, really, is it the case - as the article suggests - that the trees were going to be cut in any case and the DM has blown the whole issue up out of all proportion because it is exactly the kind of thing that keeps sald readers' tiny righteous heads spinning in a DM consuming frenzy ? The only way this story could be any more appealing to the average MailTard is if it involved immigrants of some stripe.

[Dan 10]

Can't believe I'm the first to say...

Playmobil please!

[ForthIsNotDead]

Is it illegal?

Is it illegal to have sex out in the open?

I mean, if all the participants are consenting adults, and they are away from prying eyes, is it actually illegal?

Surely, for 'decency' laws to be breached, some *objecting* person would have to witness it? Let 'em shag if that's what they want to do. They are doing away from prying eyes. If you know that people are shagging in the forest and you don't like it, just stay away from that particular spot of the forest, and walk somewhere else?

[LaeMing]

Perverts!

Surely the ones going so far out of their way to get offended by the forestorial goings on are the perverts. It is like drilling a hole in the fence around the nudist colony and then complaining about what you see through it.

[hoboroadie]

Visibility

The only people offended are those who choose to be. Some people want to be offended, and will be very disappointed to discover that this exercise has not revealed the folks they're going by and looking for. Now they'll be coming for the shrubbery in your neighborhood. The only people I find offensive are the ones that feel the flora should pay the price for their sick and twisted minds.

[Graham Bartlett]

So the correct subtitle is...

PC Plodding flogging noggin plugging logging for clogging dogging.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think...

I think this is the same reason that the trees have been cut down at the carpark on the northbound side of the A1 just south of Stirling Corner ... Can anyone confirm????

[John Dougald McCallum]

You thunk

It is not Stirling Corner but Scotch Corner Junction of A1/A66 and another thing the lack of trees will not stop them the dirty buggers were at it on the banks of The Scammonden Dam near the M62,and there aint no trees there.Used the sailing club car park.

[Alan Warder]

No! - I think.....

No really... I meant Strirling Corner.... The one in Barnet - North London!

[iworm]

Fnarr

"Due to the ongoing dogging problem we sent a team in who pulled out their choppers and dealt with the wood."

[Anonymous Coward]

I do hope they will not be

Knocking down the walls of my bedroom next.

[tom 24]

Change of heart

I've never wanted to have sex with strangers, in public, with other people watching, before now.

[Neoc]

Wondering

For those of us not familiar with the UK vernacular, could someone explain what "dogging" entails? Is it simply "having sex in the wood", or does it refer to something more specific?

(Bootnote would have been nice, elReg - especially since you are read outside the UK)

[Anonymous Coward]

RE: Wondering

Dogging is people shagging in a car normally with onlookers wanking off to it...

but not sure if this is exactly the same thing happening here; I guess so.

[fch]

"paying regular attention to the area" ...

... does this mean clearing the trees was required so the CCTV cameras got better views ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Muddled thinking by council

This is just so typical of the short sighted half baked "solutions" these wizards of public administration think is needed. What happens in twenty years time when the replacement trees have grown? The sordid deviant behaviour will surely begin again! The obvious solution of mandatory chemical castration for all citizens seems not to have occurred to our so-called public servants. Dimwits.

[Anonymous Coward]

I do like

The bit about people in twenty years will enjoy. That sounds so patronising and stupid, even for a council spokesperson.

However none of them have really considered the facts. GCSE Geography states that broad green leaf trees can't grow in ground that has had conifers without massive soil work. It is too acidic and requires the top three layers of the humus rich stuff to be removed before you can get "native things" to grow.

[geoffslea]

Geoff

If you go down to the woods today.. your in for a big surprise!!