Protect Our Local Slums

Protestors have launched a vigorous campaign in response to plans to return a derelict and abandoned housing estate to nature. The Park Estate in Warwick was built in the early fifties and its two-hundred and fifty prefabricated houses were never meant to last more than a few years. Nevertheless, the last tenant moved out only two years ago, since when the properties have been boarded up, fenced off and left to decay. This latest plan will now see the estate bulldozed to make way for a country park consisting of managed woods, grasslands and a small lake.

Inevitably, there has been strong opposition to the scheme and a sizeable section of the local population have objected fiercely. "We don't want our traditional slums ruined by areas of natural beauty," said loud-mouthed campaigner Louisa Scum, 24, who has lived in the area ever since she was 22. "All those trees and bushes will ruin the character of the area. It's all very well for the local councillors and their cronies - they all live in cosy little slums in town. They don't have to worry about having all that nature on their doorstep, do they? But what about us? What about our kids? Where are they going to play once they've torn down all the dangerous condemned buildings and cleaned up all the polluted waste ground? In a tree? I don't bloody think so!"

Local publican Maurice Phlegm, 54, has set up a Facebook page where protestors can register their opposition. He is keen to persuade the council to rethink the plan in the light of the likely impact on the area's infrastructure. "More fields means more cows," he argued. "And our highways are barely sufficient to cope with the traffic as it is. Gawd knows what's going to happen when there are suddenly all these new cows on the roads. They drive like maniacs."