Syde walk

On a dullish morning, we walked again, this time with friends. From Syde church, we set off Northwards before dipping into the hidden valley which stretches down through Eddington Wood from Brimpsfield. It's less than a mile from the busy dual carriageway, but you wouldn't know it. How grateful we can be that this ancient pocket was spared the scars that a modern PPG7 mansion would have inflicted on it! "Proposals for Syde Park, near Caudle Green, included a six-bedroom house with conservatory and orangery, two large cottages and a water cascade on landscaped terraces."

Listeners to The Archers (I don't count myself as one these days) will know all about it.

We arrived early for our rendezvous, so I popped into the jewel-like church of St Mary to see, I'd hoped, the "roundel of St James of Compostela in the nave SE window" - Pevsner. But no roundel was there to be seen! What might have become of it?

"Cheltenham under attack"

Jonathon Porritt was busy defending Cheltenham from the big planners last night - those wanting to bring on the Regional Spatial Strategy and dump unsustainable quantities of new housing onto the town in what they term "Sustainable urban extensions".

He was on good form. The numbers had emerged after "multiple meddling" by Government at every stage of the RSS development process. The challenge, he said, with any new housing development was to achieve a genuine "sustainability", such that, "as you uttered the word, you didn't trip up over your own despicable hypocrisy." What chance was there, at this point in time, that Government was going to provide the infrastructure needed for any substantial new housing development?

Senior politicians, he observed, have no difficulty these days in talking about climate change, and "even possibly with some sincerity," but they exhibit deep discomfort about going over to a truly sustainable low growth economy.

Last night, despite the thaw, Jonathon wasn't looking quite as summery as in this photograph - taken at last June's Cheltenham Science Festival.

Ripe for development?

The word is that this and the other open land between us and Leckhampton Church has all been optioned (if not bought) by builders or developers, who are just waiting for the dominoes to start falling via the planning process. I - and many others - support LEGLAG, in opposing any such development, for many reasons, including the increased likelihood of flooding. Well, as you can see it was pretty boggy today, as always in Winter. Albeit scenic of course in the snow.

Caroline has set out intrepidly for Hampshire, loaded with sandwiches, blankets, mats and a shovel - as well as Agnes and Ida. They are to stay with William and Laurie for a couple of nights, whilst Edmund and Claire go to Norfolk for a wedding: it seems likely to be a white one.