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Sat 19 Aug 2017, 06:14 (last edited on Sat 19 Aug 2017, 19:16)
Well, it's been an awful year so far for a number of residents of Pooles Lane. The monster that is the 'development' grows like a malignant cancer without hope of cure. Hundreds and hundreds of lifeforms in every shape, size, colour and specie, are gone. Whether flying or crawling, burrowing or just visiting, like the hedgehogs, there is no welcome. First the roosting birds' location, then the bees'. Then the garden and the trees. If there'd been a mountain - well actually there was for a while - and yes, it's gone. The orchard. Let's not even think about that.
That was just the start. The mechanical mayham started. Wrenching the soil and everything in it, drilling, crunching, crashing, bleeping, oh the bleeping, groaning diesel engines and just the noise. Endless noise. Unexpected banging, nerves wracked. Dust, grit. Digging, digging, digging, laborious shifting of materials.... Empty trucks filled, clanking away full, clanking back empty. All the time something is clanking. Barns demolished. Concrete rivers pouring into the earth. Noise. Huge vehicles like metal beasts invading, taking away the life, the colour, the calm space. Others bringing the replacements; the dead materials for a dead plot. Skips filled, skips hauled away, one after another after another. Months pass. Work 'progresses', rain slows play, timbers soaking.
Thinking. Is this really happening? How can this be happening? This is nothing to do with the community, no opportunity. "But it will be better once the trees have been planted". Is that it? Is that all there is to be said? This devastation is a disgrace. This place, this little place, this garden and orchard, could have been transformed into a jewel in the heart of the town, innovative ....a small number of people building homes; an architectural challenge, compact, clever, ecologically sound, partially self-sufficient generating energy, growing food... subsidised by any number of movers and shakers in the built-environment industry, a flagship for the future, a 21st century nod in the right direction. Put us on the map for good reason. Why not? This could have happened. I am sad for the lost opportunity and I am sad for Charlbury in its inability (and wholesale reluctance at the local governmental level) to welcome the challenge of innovation.
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