The city regions of Wessex and South Wales have recently come together to draw up plans for a Great Western Powerhouse stretching from Swindon in the east to Swansea in the west; Tewkesbury in the north to Weston-Super-Mare in the south. The cities of Bristol, Newport and Cardiff have commissioned a report from consultancy firmContinueContinue reading “The Ties that Bind”
Category Archives: Agriculture
Wider Still and Wider?
Leaflets for this year’s Royal Bath & West Show are starting to drop through letterboxes. Far be it from us to suggest that the show is run by a far Right clique but the leaflets areeasily confused with party literature for UKIP or the BNP, draped in more Union Jacks than you can shake aContinueContinue reading “Wider Still and Wider?”
Castles in the Air?
In our previous post we described the across-the-board hypocrisy of Wessex MPs who still claim to be able to deliver unlimited growth while simultaneously protecting all of the environment that locals cherish. Wednesday’s Western Daily Pressfurnishes a classic example. Bristol East MP Kerry McCarthy was reported as initiating a debate at Westminster on the protectionContinueContinue reading “Castles in the Air?”
Democracy’s Debt
Malmesbury – the oldest borough in England – is one of many Wessex market towns on the front line in the struggle against London overspill. The Coalition, for whose parties all constituencies in Wiltshire mainly voted in 2010, is doing its best to make sure that Malmesbury loses. The National Planning Policy Framework – theContinueContinue reading “Democracy’s Debt”
Not Gingerbread Houses
What have we been saying? That the range of demands increasingly being placed on our countryside could soon exceed the supply of rural land. Now it’s been confirmed. Cambridge University’s Institute for Sustainability Leadership has published a report – The Best Use of UK Agricultural Land – quantifying the UK-wide shortfall at up to 6ContinueContinue reading “Not Gingerbread Houses”
Come On, Wessex!
WR President Colin Bex and Secretary-General David Robins were in Cornwall on Saturday, sitting in on the Annual Conference of Mebyon Kernow. The venue was what used to be New County Hall, Truro and is now Lys Kernow (‘the Court of Cornwall’). The building’s directional signage is all bilingual, in English and an expanding languageContinueContinue reading “Come On, Wessex!”
Growing Into What?
Labour announced last month that it will return to its bad old ways with a vengeance. Towns and cities will be given ‘the right to grow’, that is, the right to build over adjoining land. Neighbouring areas that resist will simply be stamped upon.It appears that Ed Miliband really is thick enough not to realiseContinueContinue reading “Growing Into What?”
Times of Tension
It was good to hear Nick Clegg last week distancing himself from the PM. We’re all Thatcherites now, claimed Cameron. Oh no, we’re not, insisted Clegg. Any reminder that the man is Deputy Prime Minister and not Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party is very welcome.So too was another breaking of ranks last week, whenContinueContinue reading “Times of Tension”
Sowing Bricks
The Conservatives, one-time party of the countryside, continue to plot their destructive, and self-destructive, course. Planning Minister Nick Boles told Newsnight this week that he wants to concrete-over 1,500 square miles, twice the area of Greater London, though he didn’t seem quite sure of the figures. Never mind. A million acres. Or thereabouts. Did heContinueContinue reading “Sowing Bricks”
The Land is Whose?
The Forestry Commission is a big player in Wessex. Within our borders we have two of the great royal hunting forests, the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire and the New Forest in Hampshire, both still regulated by their mediæval Verderers’ Courts. Treasured parts of our heritage. Except that for Cameron, Clegg & Co they areContinueContinue reading “The Land is Whose?”
Wessex Regionalists 