CLLR MHB BLOG

Blog 24 Watching powerlessly – Planning – BBC Climate Change Cringe – Honours

Jun 08, 2025

First a cheerful image – the wild strawberries we were offered for dessert on a visit to new friends in Welcombe, close to the Marsland Valley mentioned in last week’s post because it is the subject of an engrossing new exhibition at the Museum of Barnstaple and North Devon. We have wild strawberries in our garden but never this many.

Photo by Brian Garman: Vigil in Barnstaple on Wednesday – wearing red in support of the Red Line around Parliament demanding an embargo on arms sales to Gaza.

This week we have waited for news – from Gaza, where the Israeli/US killing machine continues unchecked, from the London hospital where Laila Soueif continues her hunger strike on behalf of her illegally imprisoned son, the British/Egyptian writer and human rights activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah, and from the Madleen, the vessel taking much needed supplies across the Mediterranean to Gaza, with valiant campaigners like Greta Thunberg aboard. All these causes demand serious action by the British Government; the BBC has not interviewed government ministers in the last week on these urgent questions. Our government and our national broadcaster are failing us with catastrophic consequences to innocent lives.

North Devon Council’s Planning Committee approved a new estate of 101 houses at Chilpark, Fremington, near Barnstaple – not an easy decision but one the planning framework made unavoidable, especially as Natural England had no objection. I asked that a path across green public space at the top of the site be surfaced so that wheelchair users and cyclists could easily reach the Tarka Trail all the year round. This will happen. I feel that the roads giving access to the new estate should be speed restricted to 20mph but that is for residents and the local parish council to request if they wish. An earlier blog noted an appplication to build 11 houses on the Great Field at Braunton – this has now been withdrawn: very good.

The weather forecast this Sunday morning mentioned smoke from Canadian wildfires over the UK – and yet BBC presenters never press members of the US Republican or Reform parties on their absurd belief that anthropogenic Climate Change is ‘a Chinese hoax’. The BBC’s cultural cringe on this vital issue is profoundly disturbing.

More cheerfully again, I attended a heartening event at Exeter Cathedral on Saturday afternoon – the presentation of the St Boniface award to worthy winners across the diocese. The award recognises outstanding service to congregations and communities. David Netherway of Swimbridge is shown above with his wife and friends from the village, there to celebrate this well-deserved honour. He has done and is doing an enormous amount for our village, including the living willow birdwatching hide shown in an earlier blog. Thank you for reading.