Its been a quietish few months but I can’t help the feeling that it is the lull before the proverbial! There are stirrings in the developmental undergrowth which if ignored can suddenly erupt full-blown into a local Green Belt concern. Your Society is about the join the London Green Belt Council (LGBC), a group of amenity societies dedicated to the on-going protection of the Green Belt against the threatened loosening of its boundaries, definitions and quality. This organisation has been in existence since 1955 and has built up an impressive level of expertise in governmental and local authority attitudes to restrictions on urban sprawl. With our links to ANTAS, The Chiltern Society, Civic Voice and now the LGBC we have access to a considerable body of expertise available to us on what our local authority and national government has in store for us.
A quote for you:
'…(The) green belt does not have to be scenic but just to be there and to remain open. Improving the scenery may, of course, often be a worthy aim in some settings, but that is not the be-all and end-all of green belt. And wild life enthusiasts too often seem to assume that the wildlife wants an "improved" environment too, when all it really wants is to be left alone.'
When you think of it, that sums it up really. I think we ought to consider ourselves as ‘local wildlife’ and demand the right to be left alone!
In any case we need to be extra vigilant since the new word on the block is ‘localism’, which is supposed to have something to do with implementing the ‘Big Society’, concepts which are as yet undefined and have yet to fill the vacuum left by the demise of the unlamented Regional Planning System.
Fred Russell
