Can DNP enforce their own by-laws?

I AM concerned at the lack of action by Dartmoor National Park regarding the Rainbow Camp at Venford, near Holne.

This has been going on for several weeks now, one weekend we had police road blocks to keep them out, but this failed miserably as they parked outside the cordon and walked in, leaving cars parked all down the road from Holne cattle grid.

What a blatant waste of taxpayer’s money. We are told that DNP has an eviction warrant, but to what avail? DNP certainly seem incapable of enforcing their own by-laws. One night earlier this week I counted 14 vehicles parked along the road at Venford because the car parks are full, these vehicles are all committing the offence of parking without lights, how about the police putting some fixed penalties on them?

Many locals have in the past fallen victim to DNP’s rigorous enforcement of planning laws over windows in a 400-year-old building being out of keeping, when all that has been done is replace a 1980s style with a current design.

In my opinion DNP is no longer fit for purpose. I have long held the view that DNP does precious little for the people of Dartmoor in return for exorbitant amounts of taxpayers’ money. I say this as someone who has lived his whole life on Dartmoor, since not long after the formation of DNP.

Peter Coaker Hexworthy, Devon

Rebellion movements being run by Marxists with the ulterior motive of drastically changing our political and economic structures, what these small ‘c’ conservatives of a certain age hate is, by definition, change.

They don’t like the idea of the changes to our lifestyles needed to address climate change and the implication that our generation got it all wrong in the past. The concept of any major change away from the political system and ideologies they grew up with is anathema to them.

And their aversion to “rewriting history” is based upon a comforting assumption that history was written truthfully and completely in the first place.

People of my generation grew up in the 1950s and early 60s being taught that the British Empire was the best thing since sliced bread – and not just because it was a Brit who invented the sandwich! We ‘civilized’ backward nations in Africa and Asia which were populated, it was implied – and often plainly stated – by inferior races.

When slavery was mentioned, it was emphasised that Great Britain was the driving force behind abolition – no acknowledgement of the extent to which our economy and the wealth of many influential British families had been powered by slavery for centuries.

The outlook on life of the ultra