Has preliminary work on the bypass begun?

While walking this afternoon I come across a large forest clearance being carried out in an area very close to where the planned bypass is scheduled to rejoin the A628. I tried to get close to the action to see what was actually going on, but a very officious workman prevented me from getting near. There is absolutely no proof this deforestation is connected to the bypass, but knowing the area as well as I do it has made me very suspicious.

The forest in question, which can be found just off the A628 close to Vale house Reservoir, does have occasional forestry work carried out but nothing like what I witnessed today. Image four is an example of forest management where the artificially introduced pines are chopped to allow the smaller native trees to regain a foothold in the area.

Apologies for the quality of some of the images, but the only way I could get to see what was going on was to go onto Bleaklow and take the images from afar, unfortunately I did not have a suitable lens with me for this task, but you can still make out the industrial size machines tearing down the trees.

If this is connected to the bypass, my guess is this is where the plant machinery will be stored during the bypass construction. It makes sense from the authorities point of view because the area is fairly inaccessible on foot and traffic management would be simple, which means protesters could kept at a ‘safe’ distance. I am sure they learned lessons from Newbury and elsewhere.

Of course this may just totally coincidental and not connected to the bypass, but you can understand my suspicion when all this work is being carried out less than 500 metres from CPO notice number 67.