Save Danes Moss! Legal and restoration fund

Danes Moss is a historic peat bog and rare wildlife habitat which holds massive amounts of carbon in its soil.

This place once extended across a thousand acres to the south of the Cheshire town of Macclesfield.

After centuries of destruction by humans – and the complicity of local governments – less than 300 acres of this wilderness remains - although it is still the biggest peatland in the Cheshire lowlands.

Now, Cheshire East Council are planning a massive housing and retail development on 136 acres of the Moss.

The project is called the ‘South Macclesfield Development Area' – 950 homes, a supermarket, retail sheds and a link road that would devastate this sacred place, the last refuge of an ancient landscape.

Our group - SAVE DANES MOSS Community Group - is asking YOU to please donate whatever you can to help us stop this development in its tracks. Be in no doubt. We will fight this all the way.

But we need your help to pay for legal fees, wildlife studies and running costs.

It looks as though Cheshire East Council will not do the right thing and change course. So, we think we will have to challenge the Council either in court or through the planning system. One way or another, we will stop this development in its tracks.

Any money not used will be used to restore the site to nature OR donated to a similar group campaigning to protect peatland.

The Council's own reports admit that development risks 220,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions (we think more).

Wildlife surveys have shown that Danes Moss is exceptionally rich in wildlife. Over 22 protected 'Section 41' species live on the proposed development site including:

Willow Tit (fastest declining bird species in the UK) and 9 other protected bird species including: Common grasshopper warbler, Northern lapwing, Reed bunting.

Also,

Common Toad;

Dingy Skipper butterfly (only known colony in Cheshire East and threatened with extinction in the UK);

Small Heath butterfly;

10 protected species of moth including Cinnibar moths and White Ermine;

At least 5 species of bat have been observed on site.

Badgers are present, barn owls forage here and roe deer have been spotted.

We think that the situation is clear.

Given all we know about the life and death crises of climate change and the decline of wildlife the development of Danes Moss simply cannot go ahead.

This is our chance to stop it.

Thank you for your attention and generous support.

For more information, please visit our website, www.savedanesmoss.com