A few days ago police and council officials turned up at a privately owned nature reserve, demolished the sheds, and took the animals away. See the Congleton Chronicle for details, and a blog post here. Here is the Council's press release about it.
The problem was that the owner didn't have the necessary planning permission to use land that he owned as a nature reserve. Therefore the council eventually went and used "direct action" to uphold a planning decision, after a long legal fight.
This green belt development appears to be a collection of animals housed in temporary structures. It was open to the public and without admission charge, one of the few free family attractions in the area.
It certainly seems like very bad PR and very disproportionate for them to use such force to destroy something loved by lots of people. Some accommodation could surely have been made?
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