Letters

Lost without a compass?

• One of my pastimes is walking in the area so I should like your ‘A walk around…’ feature. But I have had a problem with Mr Chris Slade for a while now and today was the last straw, bringing me to write in.

On page 59 of your March 4 issue, Mr Slade talks about a walk that “takes you for about eight miles around the parish of Gillingham”. Have I read this right? Eight miles?!? Who has the time to walk eight miles (a four-hour walk) and if they did, would they choose to spend those precious four hours walking around Gillingham?

But my regular bone of contention with Mr Slade is the ongoing references to walking “eastward”, making “your way south-eastwards”, head “north-west for a furlong then turn left, south-southwest for a mile…” Is it just me or is this an old-fashioned and complicated way to describe a walk? Does Mr Slade assume people use and know how to use a compass? Do you have accounts of people actually following Mr Slade’s instructions successfully? As it stands I use Mr Slade’s articles as a pointer to where to walk, but I would never rely on his instructions and perhaps that’s good enough?

Maggie, by email

• It may be unwise for Ros Everleigh (NBVM 38, March 4) to return to the Lib Dem obsession with Brexit, given that her party was trounced at the 2019 general election for doing its best to thwart the democratic referendum result. She claims that the subject tops her conversations with voters, which might indeed be the case if she only talks to Lib Dem voters, but I think most people have moved on. Yes, there have been and continue to be complications arising from the implementation of the vote, but many if not all of these complications arise from the attitude of the European Union, whose negotiators said in as many words that in order to deter others Britain needed to be punished for its effrontery in wanting to leave the club. And as for the suggestion that leaving the club diminishes our national identity: given that in belonging to it our identity, and the ability of our elected representatives to take unfettered decisions, was subsumed in a supranational organisation, this seems to me a remarkably illogical statement.

Roger White, Sherborne

• On looking again at the application for the proposed 188-acre site between Mappowder, Pulham and Hazelbury Bryan it came home to me with a gasp of horror – this is not a few panels in a field behind a village, this is a massive scar on the landscape with a very long list of infrastructure requirements involved.

Consideration of this application will begin on 19 March. I want to emphasise the flooding aspect and the vulnerability of lives along the River Lyddon, which frames this space.

In the 14 years I have lived in Kings Stag, specifically on Ridge Lane, my neighbours and I have been marooned, endured water lapping around our doors, suffered great anxiety and potential risk to life. It happens every year. In the winter of 2013-14 we were trapped 11 times; it was a miracle I was able to wade out to attend my husband’s funeral! In the past six months, rainfall caused the blocking of the village road and Ridge Lane flooding came up to my armpits. I was forced to wade through it in the dark, which was a terrifying experience. A neighbour closer to the proposed site was flooded so extensively that she is still unable to move back into her home. We are told that extreme weather is only likely to intensify.

We the public are well aware of and support renewable, green energy sources, but greater consideration needs to be given to the siting of such enterprises and the implications thereof. The runoff from the solar panels would concentrate water into an already highly challenged and delicate network of ditches and streams.

We have been warned. Noelle Adeley, Kings Stag

• Dorset is an amazing county with a wide variety of habitats. But its wildlife is under constant threat of persecution.

Shooting estates are allowed to ‘control’ native animals and birds to protect farmed birds whose only purpose is to provide sport.

‘Trail’ hunts, whether by accident or, as some claim, on purpose, have spent the winter terrorising foxes, deer and hares. You don’t have to look far to find video footage and photographs of out-ofcontrol hounds chasing and, in some cases, killing innocent creatures.

Applications have been submitted for supplementary badger culling licences in both Somerset and Dorset.

The routine use of pesticides and herbicides is having a devastating effect on insect populations.

Local MP Chris Loder recently stated in the February 18 edition of this magazine, after the news that two white-tailed eagles had been found dead in the county, that he doesn’t think “Dorset is the place for eagles”.

Dorset is most definitely a place for all wildlife and it is up to us all to protect it.

According to the ‘State of Nature’ report from 2019, “UK’s wildlife loss continues unabated”. Our chances of seeing our wonderful array of animals and birds in their native habitats grows slimmer day by day. If we don’t act now then we face a future without them.

Amanda, Sherborne

• I want to query your editorial policy of publishing letters whose authors’ names are ‘withheld’. It seems to me that if someone feels strongly about something – for instance, in the latest issue, the person attacking Boris Johnson over the ending of Covid restrictions, and someone else attacking other

Tory politicians over Brexit – then they should have the courage of their convictions and accept that their names are published. Anonymity is one reason why social media has become such a festering problem since it means that people can express increasingly hysterical and

Cartoon by Lyndon Wall justsocaricatures.co.uk

often noxious views without being held responsible for them.

Incidentally, I thought it a bit rich that Geoff Coulson of Stalbridge, in his spittleflecked attack on Chris Loder, complains about having previously “had to put up with the rantings of people like Bill Woodhouse”. It seems he thinks it’s fine that readers should now have to put up with his own rantings instead. At least Chris Loder is always measured in his views and never rants!

Roger White, Sherborne

• In wholehearted empathy with ES Williams’ letter from Stourton Caundle (NBVM 39, March 18), villages such as ours share the exact same problem with drivers being inconsiderate of residents and pedestrians.

We live in a south Wiltshire village whose main street is a cul-de-sac with houses on either side. It shares the national speed limit of 60mph.The local councils and highway agencies (who hide behind one another), seemingly lack the vision or compassion to impose a common-sense speed limit to protect human and animal life. In short, they do not care.

What they have said is that there must be a minimum number of accidents, ‘ideally’ deaths, before they will act. This is the rule they appear to follow. If they choose to blame their inaction on matters of cost, I have no doubt that local residents would share the burden of paying for the installation of the necessary signs. We live in an age of vans, supermarket deliveries and the rest, plus the twice-daily peril of children on school runs whose drivers always seem short of time!

Pleas to local councils and authorities are rejected or ignored because they simply cannot be bothered and we all suffer as a result.

Christopher Bass, Fonthill Gifford

• The New BVM is a civilised publication serving a civilised part of the world. So it is very sad that Mr Geoff Coulson of Stalbridge can only express his disagreement with the MP for West Dorset by using uncivil and discourteous language, referring to “the offensive trash that emanates from that self-opinionated hypocrite Chris Loder.”

Well, rants like that are Mr Coulson’s problem, and he only demeans himself. And I am sure that, like most politicians, Chris Loder is well-used to abuse taking the place of reasoned argument. But on one thing I must insist: Chris Loder is no hypocrite. I have known him since he was eleven: we joined the Gryphon School at much the same time, he as a new student and I as a new Foundation Governor. He has grown into a thoughtful and sincere man I am proud to call my friend. I am only sorry that my retirement from Sherborne Abbey after 27 years necessitated a move out of his constituency.

However, we have never lost touch, and have had many a passionate discussion about matters political, social and economic. Frequently we disagree: my politics are not quite the same as his! But, in the spirit of Voltaire, we have always agreed that, however much we might differ from one another, we will defend to the death each other’s right to the free expression of our respective views. We do so in a spirit of friendship and civility.

Mr Coulson is entitled to his views too. Their expression would be more forceful without the bile and rancour.

(Canon) Eric Woods, Sturminster Newton

• Some time BC (before Covid) I emailed some local bus companies to ask whether provision could be made for carrying bikes on buses. As a resident of Gillingham, my thinking was that if bikes could be taken by bus to Sturminster Newton or some other point on the Dorset Trailway, it might encourage cyclists who are reluctant to use the roads. In other areas, being able to transport a bike over longer distances would mean that it could then be used for the shorter part of a commute. There is no shortage of space on our local buses, which already have room for pushchairs and disability scooters. Buses in Switzerland have facilities for bikes, as does the Border Bus company in Scotland.

Replies so far: (a) there are Health and Safety issues; (b) it’s been referred to management (no further reply after over two years). Can’t we do better than this? Incidentally, I would be interested to know how many cyclists have been helped by the cycle lane along Christys Lane, Shaftesbury. It diverts them off the road for less than 100 yards and then dumps them back on it, with no sign of any link to another cycleway. Is this an example of non-joined-up thinking?

Revd Colin Marsh, Gillingham

Corrections

• In your article in NBVM 39 (March 18) about our local radio station ‘Alfred’ you refer to its founder Keri Jones as ‘she’. I just wanted to point out that Keri is very definitely a man!

Margaret Cluett, Shaftesbury

• In NBVM 39 (March 18) we lost some of the contact details for the Blandford Hedgehog Group. If you would like to get in touch about volunteering, please contact Denise on 07519 885147, through the Blandford HHG Facebook page, or email hedgehogs. blandford @gmail.com.