Greenfield

An email came round last night from our local action group advising us that the owner of this field and the one next to it is putting in a planning application to build 130 houses on the land. A meeting has already taken place during which the members of the action group who were present told the landowner in no uncertain terms that there will be no support whatsoever for his plans - and apparently they refused to eat the sausage rolls he proffered! And so we have another fight on our hands in addition to the ones already under way objecting to the proposed housing development for the poultry farm at the bottom of the garden for a similar number of houses and the retrospective one for the traveller site down the lane. Thank goodness for the action group who do an excellent job of keeping abreast of things and rallying the residents as required. They've even hired a lawyer. There are plenty of grounds on which to object, not least those of access, infrastructure and road safety but who knows how things will end up? With the Government's housebuilding targets as they are it feels very much as if we, the nearby residents, have little if any influence on decisions that are made.

In other news, a two hundred year old horse chestnut tree in the centre of the village was felled today for safety reasons. It's sad that it had to happen to the tree which has appeared in so many pictures and photographs over the centuries due to its position outside the Royal Anchor, a former coaching inn which dates back to the 16th century. I'm glad I won't be risking death standing beneath it for the traditional post-LiDBA beer each June but I will miss the old tree. There are local rumblings about replacing it with either another tree or something made from the wood of the old one, which I rather like the idea of.