Unpopular Stances

Countryside Column for 14 November 2014

All Things to All Villagers

The agreement for the lease of the land has been signed and building work is due to start in the Spring. Six new ‘affordable’ homes will emerge on a greenfield site at the edge of the village. Although they will largely be reserved for people with close local ties, I’m sure there will still be some people hereabouts who fundamentally oppose the scheme. There certainly were when the Parish Council held a public meeting to discuss it almost two years ago. I remember being shocked at the vehemence of the opposition.

It’s one of the dilemmas for local politicians.  You can’t please all of the people all of the time. 

And it’s arguably worse for parish councillors. We don’t stand under a political banner and we feel it’s our duty to try to represent everyone in the parish. But how on earth to do that when opinions are sharply divided?

I only joined the council as a result of such a division when half the former members resigned over a suitable site for a new primary school.

The fresh council wanted to heal the rifts but immediately faced the new row over the affordable housing on land we controlled.

I was aware that my stance in favour of the homes would make me unpopular with the objectors. This was extremely regrettable, but I felt I had to stand by what I believed. I could not be ‘all things to all men’.  If I were completely out of kilter with local opinion they could kick me out at the next local elections.

Then a letter from another resident was circulated to the council. It expressed concern about the activities of protestors and, in particular, a petition they had got up. The author said they did not in any way represent the feelings of everybody in the local community. And it made a powerful case for affordable housing being the “very best use that can be made of that land”.

It was extremely heartening. But, sadly, the letter was anonymous. The author explained they had lived in the village for a very long time and knew how words could come back to haunt you.

How awful, I thought, that someone should feel so intimidated over a local housing issue. But I predict that, once the houses are up and new neighbours have moved in, the initial opposition will soon fade. 

Breaking (National) Trust

Countryside Column for 7 November

Stealing the castle common

Open letter to Simon Jenkins, National Trust Chairman.

Dear Simon,

As head of an organisation as large as the National Trust, you may not be aware of the hugely retrograde and regrettable change of policy recently introduced at Bodiam Castle in East Sussex.

For more than half a century I have visited the castle and walked its undulating grounds gazing at the “archetypal 14th century moated castle with ruined interior - a glimpse of medieval splendour” as your publicity describes it.

I have brought countless visitors, domestic and foreign, to enjoy the surroundings and the visit to the grounds has always been free. Often they have chosen to pay for admission to the castle keep itself and cross the drawbridge marvelling at the huge carp in the moat.

No more though. Now they must each cough up a whopping £7.95 (plus £3 car parking charge) just to enter the grounds. No longer on a summer’s day can they wander, picnic, play Frisbee or feed the ducks for free.

I know admission to the keep is included in the price. But it’s cold comfort. There is precious little to do among the ruins except climb vertiginous stairs up two of the towers. 

Neither of your neighbouring properties, Sissinghurst or Scotney castles, charges for admission to their grounds. Why Bodiam?

The National Trust is a custodian of large chunks of Britain’s heritage. Of course you need sufficient income to continue your work, but I have always paid my membership on the basis the Trust exists to make those parts of the countryside you control accessible to ALL. What next? Will you fence off and charge admission to the 750 miles of our coastline that you own?

I predict you will witness a dramatic decrease in visitors to Bodiam. And that means revenue will be down in the café and the shop. You are also incurring the ire of local people who have enjoyed walking the grounds for so many years.

And please don’t say, ah but there is a public footpath through past the castle, you can still use that. All your signage strongly suggests payment is mandatory.

As an historian you will recall the old rhyme:

“The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
But leaves the greater villain loose
Who steals the common from off the goose”

Please reverse this decision now!

Sincerely

Kent

Just a Load of Rubbish

Countryside Column for 31 October

Refuse the refuse cuts please

It’s a scene out of one of those chaotic Breugel paintings. Village folk scurry hither and thither; women throw things from doors and windows; men pull rudimentary carts up and down lanes. Yes, the civic amenity vehicle has arrived for its fortnightly visit.

            Among the more interesting items at our parish council meetings are reports from our borough councillors on what’s going on at the town hall in Tunbridge Wells. This month the spotlight was on this amenity vehicle-- otherwise known as the refuse lorry.

            Now for people who live close to a recycling centre this may be of little import. But for me it’s a 40 mile round trip to dispose of things declined by the kerbside collection.

            We used to have a dump much closer. But some years ago the council closed it and sold off the land. As compensation for the loss of the facility, they promised us a peripatetic refuse truck. Every other Saturday it visits my village, alternating with others nearby.

            And very popular it is too. Often cars and trailers queue down the road waiting to disgorge garbage, garden waste and the surplus contents of long neglected sheds. The driver is extremely accommodating and helps to tip almost anything into the cavernous interior of his compactor. There’s even a totter’s truck alongside which takes your scrap metal.

            The problem is that the town hall bean counters have proposed saving £32,000 a year by withdrawing the service. This has led to local consternation and much lobbying of rural council members.

            One pointed that out that fly tipping would certainly increase - which already costs the council a tidy sum to clear. And, at the same meeting when they proposed saving our £32,000, the group voted to spend £1.5 million on new seats for the Assembly Hall, even though it’s planned to replace the whole building shortly.

            However, the issue for anyone of an ecological bent, is that the entire contents of the fortnightly refuse lorry goes straight to landfill. So old paint tins, noxious leeching chemicals, methane-making foliage, and a sea of plastics will remain buried just below the surface of Kentish fields for generations.

            The answer: a proper collection service that separates refuse at source and then recycles it. Trouble is, it would require more lorries, or new ones with separate compartments.  And that means spending more money. Somehow I can’t quite see that happening!

Privately funded state education?

Countryside Column for Friday 24^th October

Schoolchildren starved of tax-cake

Finally.  Finally the last stage of planning permission for the village’s new primary school has been passed.  Now nothing stands in the way of building work.  Before long children will leave their old, inadequate and appallingly overcrowded premises for the wonderful, modern building on the edge of the village.

Well, the first third of that statement is true.  The rest, sadly, is pure wishful thinking.  The process has been going on so long – nearly fourteen years – that a recession, unwise council investments, and swinging central government cuts mean there is no money to build the desperately needed school.  True, there is some special funding the council can bid for, but we’re competing against urban areas which have serious levels of deprivation.

So muted discussions can be heard round the village wondering if, perhaps, some money might be raised locally to finance all or part of the school.  And here’s the dilemma. I am the first to want to see it built.  I originally stood for the Parish Council because I felt others were obstructing progress.  But should we really have to raise the money ourselves for PUBLIC education? 

We are not a poor village.  That’s to say there are some very well-heeled people about, living in pretty decent houses, driving far from shabby cars. (Though as so often in the countryside that disguises a layer of rural poverty that is not so readily apparent.)  But the point is, that if push came to shove, the village might just raise part of the £4 million needed. 

But wouldn’t that be the start of a slippery slope?  Next time a new local school is wanted, county hall or Westminster would simply say, well let them pay for it themselves.  And that might be in localities where there wasn’t so much money around, or even to areas where there was none at all.

Look what’s happened in higher education.  People are now expected to pay for Uni themselves regardless of their means.

We pay our taxes, and out of them we expect government to finance, crucially, education, health and welfare, with transport, law and order and national security coming close behind.

Isn’t it obvious, though, that the tax revenue cake just isn’t big enough to be divided into sufficient pieces.  But will you hear any party advocating raising taxes come the general election?  I don’t think so.  Which is bad news for our primary pupils.

Uncle Bob a bit pissed?

Countryside Column for 17 October.

Bob is still your uncle for real cider.

In my youth the cider lorry, piled high with wooden barrels, was a common sight round here. On the backboard was painted the legend: “Bob’s Your Uncle”. And Bob Luck Cider was itself legendry – certainly the potent vintage variety needed to be drunk by the thimbleful to avoid instant inebriation.

I visited his farm to collect a barrel of ‘ordinary’ for my 18^th birthday party. It was beautifully bucolic, buried away down meandering lanes. Bob himself was apple-round with a face suggesting he’d sampled too much of his own product over the years. I strapped the barrel on the back of my motorcycle and still remember the hazardous drive home round sharp bends. 

In those days real cider drinking was commonplace, possibly because gassy keg beer was all you could get in most pubs. The Campaign for Real Ale altered all that but, with the revival of cask-conditioned beer, somewhere along the way traditional cider making got left behind. People such as Bob Luck retired or went out of business and ironically what was left were gassy bottled ciders

Now, though, CAMRA is busy promoting real cider and have listed almost two thousand pubs that sell it.  They are also making a documentary about the production process and sent a film crew along to our community orchard apple day the other week. 

This cider revival has been a boon and a blessing to orchards like ours. We are by no means sure what varieties of apples we have, but cider makers like a blend. Picking from ladders up our old tall trees is a time-consuming business (and something of a safety hazard). So, shaking branches and collecting the fruit from the ground is a good deal easier and the occasional bruise no bar if an apple is to go in the press. (Bruises to pickers from apples falling from trees remain a minor danger though!)

It’s surprising just how many local cider-makers are about but, as always, our main problem is transporting the apples to the press. Now, though, a maker with the wonderfully redolent name of Rough Old Wife actually collects them from us – and the proprietor even came along to offer some of last year’s cider for our Apple Day.

It was quite delicious and the taste memory whisked me back across the decades to that birthday party and Bob Luck’s late-lamented beverage.