Give a cheer for warriors fighting to save green land
AS readers may well imagine, over five decades I have championed hundreds of environmental causes, from the plight of the uber-rare Plymouth Pear in the Sunday Times, to my piece in the Glossop Chronicle last year on the proposed squeezing in of 37 houses onto yet one more tiny parcel of land in Glossop.
And, believe me, none create more angst than the latter type of development.
The furore is created not least because of the loss of wild areas and their attendant wildlife, the lack of infrastructure to support yet more vehicles, but also due to the perceived unfairness in methods employed for permissions to be gained. sean.wood @talk21.com
These including the claim that ‘on site’ trees are diseased, that there is no wildlife of any significance, that it is necessary for the area and so on.
No names and no pack drill, but I have seen Ecological Surveys and Local Authority Reports which have just been plain wrong.
To the sound of loud boos, on balance, most proposed building eventually gets the go ahead, but please let’s hear a tremendous cheer for those that are halted in their tracks,and this is usually because of one enthusiastic person and a team of like-minded individuals who do their ‘homework,’ gather support, create an imaginative campaign and refuse to give up.
So as an example for anyone wanting to kick up a fuss over building on green land, put your hands together for Halina Bloggins of Hadfield and her pals with their ‘Save Roughfields’ campaign, complete with classy logo, mugs, posters, a professionally recorded film and, of course, a host of their members to take great photos like this one.
This is a much loved tract of land between Padfield and Hadfield, with the most unlikely football pitch I have ever played on, ball at the top and it rolls down unaided type of thing, but these green fields represent so much more for the nearby residents.
It’s space for kids and dogs, and indeed all ages, to contemplate the day and look beyond to the tempting hills at Woodhead and the string of five reservoirs of Longdendale.
More wildlife than you can shake a stick at, including barn owls, who quarter the field at dusk, yellow wagtails, strutting their stuff like cocky canaries, whitethroats the wraiths of the hedgerow and, of course, the stoats and weasels who float in and out of the dry stone walls like ribbons on the wind. I could go on with the list but let’s hear from the Lady herself:
“Rough Fields, as it is known locally, have a very special place in the heart of our community. There are generations of memories set deep into the earth of picnics, school sports days, football matches on a sloping pitch, babies being born in the snow.
“The people love Rough fields and Roughfields loves us. It is the only piece of accessible green space left in this part of Hadfield and it provides the defining gap between the villages of Padfield and Hadfield.”
Powerful stuff and, as you see, Halina is just the sort of advocate we need and oh my I do remember that football pitch.
I played for the Vic’ (Victoria Pub) and we would get changed in the bar and run up the hill in winter to do battle with the likes of the Pear Tree and Friendship and, as I recall, there was nothing friendly about the encounters, but those were the days.
I bought my first house at the top of Brosscroft in 1977 and Roughfields was my first ‘view’ in the area.
I asked Halina what sparked the campaign: “A friend messaged me and told me that surveyors were on the fields and at that moment something lit up in me, a real sense of protectiveness and the need to save this piece of land from being lost forever.
“That beautiful lumpy, bumpy, muddy land with views to inspire even the heaviest of hearts.
“On impulse I started a Facebook page and, ‘Save Roughfields,’ was born.
“I’m new to the area so I didn’t know many people but somehow the word spread and within just a couple of weeks we had a thousand members and were growing all the time.
“The FB page kept crashing because so many people wanted to join!
“I think we made people sit up and realise that the community wanted a voice and I just happened to be there at that moment.
“I’m the daughter of Polish refugees who came to this country after the terrors of WW2 and my mother told me that the way she survived as a young girl was to ‘never give up.’ “My motto to this day. “I will never give up on Roughfields, it is just too precious to lose.
“We have a working group made up entirely of volunteers and we are currently looking at alternative sustainable ideas for how Roughfields could be used to benefit our communities both now and in the future.”
So there you have it, an inspiring blueprint for a vigorous campaign.
And, as Halina says, never give up.