“ECO-TOWNS: what an oxymoron is that! How can a new town be ecologically friendly when it is built on a green field site which entails concreting over large areas of the countryside and destroying natural habitat?” asks Sally Wood in her Straight Talking column in the June issue of Freedom, the British National Party's monthly newspaper.
Sally continues:
You only have to think of all the additional traffic and congestion it will generate, free to spew pollutants into the air.
Take the small village of Micheldever in the North Hampshire Downs. Here in this delightful rural landscape of rolling hills and wooded copse: home to owls, bats and a rare pair of stone curlews, Eagle Star Insurance have plans to concrete over it and construct one of these new eco-towns.
Another eco-town is proposed near Couldwell and Roslington in South Derbyshire. Bank Development are planning a 5,700 unit settlement which will entail the felling of national forest trees and a new road to feed its new eco-town of テ「ぎヒ廨rovewoodテ「ぎ┐. How eco-friendly is that!
It appears that 40% of these homes are to be affordable housing, but for whom?
The English are simply not replacing themselves, but they are now fleeing our ever increasingly crime-ridden cities to be replaced there by economic migrants. Surely if these economic migrants were told to stay in their own countries their carbon footprint would be lower, and that has to be good for the planet.
From every angle these eco-towns can only be an eco-disaster.
ALLOTMENT WANTED!
ONE of my earliest memories is of peering through railings atテあan elderly neighbour tending his plot in the allotments at the end of my road in South London.
I still think of that today whenテあI flash passed in the train and spot the same site.テあThe allotments have long since disappeared only to be replaced by an ugly block of flats with a garish mural which adorns the entire flank wall. It seems like something from another country.
Where I live now there was much consternation when the Liberal Democrats, who ran theテあCouncil at that time andテあwho are always keen to proclaim their green credentials, decided to allow aテあHousingテあ Association development on the nearby allotments.テあSince thenテあmany of the council houses in our areaテあhave become occupiedテあby Eastern Europeans and others from overseas. When I recently tried to put my name down for an allotment on the sole remaining site I was told there wasテあa waiting list of at leastテあforty people before me and I could be given no indication as to when I was likely to reach the top of the list. Prepare to put your name downテあwhen youngテあif you wish to get one in this lifetime!
With the United States now convertingテあa fifthテあof its corn to ethanol toテあprovide approximately 3-4% ofテあthe fuel needed to run itsテあcars and trucks,テあthe price of food worldwide has rocketed.テあテあCoupled with that, the droughts in Australia and China have resulted in a shortage ofテあriceテあwhich has caused some countries toテあcease exportingテあrice completely for fear of food riots.
Britain was last self sufficient inテあgrain, meat and dairyテあinテあthe 1830テ「ぎ┐sテあand today self-sufficiency stands at only 60%, which makes us particularly vulnerable to a decline in food imports. During the last war when this was of concern,テあten percentテあof our food was produced from gardens and allotments. It is hard to imagineテあsuch aテあfigure could be reached today especially as many gardens in urban areas are now housing developments having beenテあdesignated as テ「ぎヒ彙rownfield sitesテ「ぎ┐.
As for that allotment . . . look around for one and youテあcouldテあwell look in vain, for whereテあit used to be you may find instead an ugly block of flats housing people from other lands and giving us the responsibility of all those additional mouths to feed.
Read Sally Wood's Straight-Talking every month.
Freedom is edited by Martin Wingfield. His blog can be found here. テあ