Radical environmentalism is becoming nearer and nearer the mainstream - even Coronation Street's Emily Bishop has taken to the to the treetops and Sicknote from London's Burning has joined the "tunnellers." Sarah Walsh talks to an unlikely group of eco-protesters who refuse to take no for an answer.

Jean Jones and her neighbours in Sandy Lane can remember the exact moment they snapped, when they finally decided enough was enough.

The scene was a council chamber in City Hall, the date, January 8. Mrs Jones, a 38-year-old housewife and mother of two, her friends Melanie Firth and Carol Simpson and other residents in Sandy Lane, were listening to councillors debate whether to grant planning permission for a large luxury housing development on the edge of the village.

A spokesman for the protesters stood up and outlined their objections. While he was talking, recalls Jean, "The Labour councillors talked among themselves, yawned and looked at their watches. They didn't listen to a word we were saying. I feel we were treated with contempt."

A vote was taken; and Bryant Homes secured its planning approval to go ahead and build the housing estate on the field.

But then something very unusual happened. The Sandy Lane residents, who had already bombarded Bradford Council with 220 objection letters and signed petitions and gone to meetings and lobbied their local councillors, decided they would not go quietly.

Instead, 52 of them met up in a church hall and voted unanimously to take direct action to stop bulldozers entering the field. They have occupied the site claiming 'squatters rights' and say they will not budge from two caravans, in what is believed to be the first action of its kind involving local residents in Bradford.

What happens next is anybody's guess - the residents themselves, law-abiding and middle class, admit to feeling a bit apprehensive. But they are quite determined to stick together. Their determination springs from the fact they feel completely let down by the planning process, which they feel is skewed in favour of big developers like Bryant Homes.

"Had the Council and Bryant Homes listened to us, had they not been so bolshy and determined they were going to push it through, we might not be doing this," explains Mrs Simpson, a 41-year- old housewife from Cottingley Road. "We feel we were fobbed off."

As well as occupying the land, the residents have other ideas on how they can make life difficult for the builders - double parking their cars on the narrow access road to the site, for example. But they don't want to say too much publicly about what their plans are.

Bingley anti-roads protester Oliver Robinson, who is advising them on their rights under the law, said: "There will be a persistent campaign to prevent these houses being built. It's not the case that if the caravans get moved, that's it. The residents will do everything they can at every stage to stop this, which will mount up the cost for the developer."

The alliance of 'hardcore' eco-warriors with ordinary householders has already worked to great effect in movements like the campaigns to stop live calf exports and fox-hunting and road protests like the Newbury bypass. It is a sign that passionate concern for the environment - and having the guts to stand up and do something about it - is becoming more and more mainstream.

For evidence you only have to look at the TV soaps where mild-mannered Emily Bishop has quit Coronation Street for a treetop protest while 'Sicknote' (Bert Quigley), from London's Burning, has become spokesman for a group of anti-road protesters.

In BBC Radio's The Archers, posh Lynda Snell and churchwarden Marjorie Antrobus were even arrested and taken off in a police van for their part in the protest against the Borchester bypass. Whatever next?

The Sandy Lane protesters feel they are part of a wider movement to stop greenfield developments in the Aire Valley, where similar sites at Silsden and Jenny Lane, Baildon, are under threat.

Mrs Simpson said: "Fifteen years ago, people like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth were seen as loony tunes, extremists. But not now. It's coming more into the mainstream."

Retired financial services manager Mike Hallam, 51, added: "I have never met Oliver before, his boots are muddy but he has never come up here in an aggressive way, he has helped us and advised us and what he stands for has come through to us all.

"I'm sure I talk for a lot of people who are very very concerned about what's going on in the country with greenfield sites disappearing. Our children will inherit a concrete jungle."

Opponents of housing developments have become more and more vocal and determined in the last 15 years - a phenomenon which has been noticed by planning officers.

One Bradford Council planner confirmed: "People are becoming more determined to have their say - and why not? I have heard of people threatening to lie down in front of bulldozers, but I have never come across an issue like this where people have taken over the site. The days when people just used to accept things blindly have gone."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.