FRIENDS and family have been remembering a passionate activist who helped win one of the biggest battles in Stroud's recent history.
Terry Belcher, who has died aged 86, was well-known for his involvement in the successful campaign against the construction of a ring-road and flyover in the late 1970s which would have dramatically changed the face of the town.
Historic buildings would have been demolished, natural habitats destroyed and ancient trees razed to the ground.
Had it gone ahead, buildings including the Old Police Station and the British School would have been demolished and a 20ft high flyover built across town from the Merrywalks/Beeches Green roundabout to London Road via the top of the High Street.
Known as SCAR (Stroud Campaign Against the Ring Road), the group gained huge support, with protesters taking to the branches to protect trees against advancing machinery.
And it was a success - with a planning inspector branding the Gloucestershire County Council scheme ‘an environmental disaster’ and booting out the plans in 1976.
The scheme was eventually replaced with Dr Newton's Way, which was finished in 1987.
With a keen interest in social issues, Terry was also involved with housing organisation Roofem and SHAG (Stroud Highstreet Action Group).
A much-loved family man, Terry’s ashes were due to be scattered today. Saturday, by a tree on a ridge near Stroud however the event has now been postponed.
The site was chosen as it was here that his adopted daughter Katie’s ashes were scattered around 20 years ago.
Terry and his second wife Di moved away from Gloucestershire after marrying in the late 1980s but his first wife Gwen and their son Adam still live here.
Gwen was a long-standing local councillor and Terry, who passed away in December, was politically active in Stroud in the 1970s and 1980s.
Born in Lydney, Terry was named after the box of chocolates his dad Frank brought for his mother, Irene.
The Belcher family were well-known in the Forest because of their band.
Terry had a gift for singing and kept this up in the scouts, where he eventually became one of the first Queen's Scouts of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign.
He would go on to become a scout leader in the Forest of Dean, the first of many demanding voluntary posts he would undertake.
Terry, whose son Peter lives in Vienna and daughter Natalya lives in Australia, worked as a quantity surveyor with Pat Rowntree, a quantity surveyor in Gloucester.
Pat was a Quaker and introduced Terry to their way of worship.
Terry later met Gwen - who helped run a cub group - with the boys forming a guard of honour at their wedding.
They lived in a first floor flat near Stroud and one night a fire broke out.
Neighbours rushed to help and nurseryman Haydn Sutton allowed them to park a caravan on a corner of his land until they could sort themselves out.
They remained good friends for the rest of Terry’s life.
A keen volunteer, Terry served on four different Parent Teacher Associations in Stroud and also taught drama in his spare time.
Besides having their own two children, the couple became foster parents to other young people and hosted students from other countries.
Terry very much admired his gran, a suffragette who used to walk 20 miles to attend meetings in the Forest of Dean, and she was influential in the development of his ideas and politics.
He became concerned at a young age about housing problems faced by single mothers and was instrumental in setting up a scheme which enabled unmarried mums to rent homes in neighbouring properties so they could support each other.
Later in life Terry and Di they tried to help people considered a lower priority for council tenancies such as couples without children.
Terry offered free building advice and costings to owners of shops with vacant space which was suitable for accommodation.
In Stroud, Terry was well-known for the ring-road campaign.
"He was concerned that the plan would remove the life from the town and it was especially concerned that it would be elevated and would lead to the destruction of some very old trees that were appreciated by many," explained Di.
"The campaign was supported by large numbers of volunteers. Campaigners climbed up the trees and refused to budge as the cutting equipment began to arrive.
"Terry and colleagues halted the destruction in the nick of time."
In 1976 the plans were thrown out at a public inquiry, with the inspector finding that the proposed ring road would be ‘an environmental disaster’.
Other organisations he was involved with include Roofem and SHAG (Stroud Highstreet Action Group).
Later Terry let room at his family home to single people who were another lower priority group for council tenancies.
Together Terry and Di, along with a small group of others, founded Roofem, a housing charity to support homeless single people find affordable accommodation.
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