Morning Murmurings or to Sea or not to See

Save our Sea Views

Hastings Independent Press

The following conversation, or something like it, may or may not have taken place over a cup of tea in bed one morning recently:

He:  You know, I’m sure that tree has grown.  You used to have a clear view of the sea the sea from this side of the bed.

She: When I bought the house you could see the sea not just from the top floor here, but also from the middle AND the ground floors!

He:  We need to open up views of the coastline  - direct action!

She:  Sort of SOSV – Save Our Sea View.  According to Grand Designs they add a lot to house values. Trouble is tree owners probably wouldn’t pay to have them lopped, and anyway they might be protected by tree orders.

He:  I said DIRECT action.  We’ll gather a guerilla group armed with chainsaws and go round at night felling arboreal offenders.

She:  This is Hastings.  People like trees.  You’ll have an opposing group going round with banners saying S.O.T. - Save Our Trees. In fact they’ll probably chain themselves to trunks or build tree houses and occupy them.

He: (sipping tea):  Hmm.   You’re right, we don’t want a pitched battle between the SOSVs and the SOTs.  Sort of like the mods and the rockers.  It could lead to the great Hastings chainsaw massacre.  Perhaps we’d better promise to plant two new trees for every one we cut down.

She:  Yes, but where?  Almost any location is likely to block someone’s view of the sea eventually.

He:  Well, we could plant them up on the East Hill I suppose.  There’s no one there to object.

She:  Except for the residents of the new building at the Rocklands Caravan Park – you know the one they stuck the second floor and huge balcony on that caused all the fuss last summer.

He:  Excellent.  The perfect place to plant some trees.  In fact extremely tall and fast growing tress which would completely block their view, making the new building completely pointless. 

She:  You mean Laylandii?

He:  Yes.  That’s the idea, lots of them.  Right in front of the building.

She:  Erm …. I thought the whole point of your SOSV guerilla group was to open up views of the sea, not deliberately obstruct them?

He:  Ah,  you may have a point.  Perhaps a slight rethink is in order.  Is there another cup of tea going?