Members of Holme Valley Piscatorial Association are angry following land clearance at Magdale Dam undertaken by Honley Village Trust.
The Association fish on one side of the dam and allowed land on the other side to become overgrown as habitat for wildlife that included birds and bats.
They claim the Trust has cleared a part of the land without consultation after bringing in a team of volunteers from Leeds University.
Association member Peter Budd said: “They have cut down trees with a nine inch circumference. A robin lived in one of them.
“It was so tame it would come and sit by you when you were fishing and take a maggot. This clearance has massively interfered with the wild life. It now looks like a bomb site.”
The Association developed Magdale for disabled anglers more than 30 years ago. They raised a third of the price of the land but were turned down for Lottery funding for the rest because they were not a registered charity. So they asked if they could use the Village Trust to make the application, received the grant and gifted the land to the Trust.
In return, the Association were given a legally binding agreement to manage the ground and the water. They put in a great deal of work between 1978 and 1981 to create an idyllic spot for anglers and walkers.
The Association claim the Trust has twice previously acted without consultation with detrimental effect to the area.
But Steve Hemming, a Trust committee member, played down the row saying: “Ideally we should have consulted with the Association at an earlier stage.”
He said they had an offer from Leeds University of a study group interested in a conservation project and a dozen people had turned up on the day in question eager to work.
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