Thought-provoking article on Western Morning News website:
“…If you love something and know it should be protected from harm, you will fight for it – preferably with others, but alone if needs be. But standing up for the countryside can be a lonely furrow to plough in a modern world where our leaders seem to have turned their backs on the nation’s once beloved green acres. …
..But if we have warned, cajoled and focused on the idea that the countryside is under attack from a government which puts short-term profit and gain above the concept of long-term sustainability, then what has puzzled me is why national newspapers and celebrity media commentators aren’t leaping on the same bandwagon. …
….Mr Jenkins [ outgoing Chairman if the National Trust] believes developers have been successful in their bid to build on the countryside, thanks to the fact that they have a “friend” in the Chancellor. If you think the former NT chairman might be deluded, then look at how many towns around the Westcountry are being encircled by new housing developments, despite the fact that communities are protesting they don’t have the infrastructure – or jobs – to support such large numbers of incomers. …
… The countryside isn’t just a pretty place – although there’s evidence to prove that being a pretty place has financial worth both in terms of tourism and wellbeing. It is a provider rather than a taker. It gives far more in the way of economic benefit than it costs. It grows the food we eat, provides the water we drink, helps clean the air we breathe and sequester the muck we shove into the atmosphere. Its worth is far more than anything politicians could hope to accrue by allowing get-rich -quick developers to convert green acres into temporary money spinning fields.”
East Devon Watch 