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Well, not really news of course, just a few lines of airy persiflage.

When I was walking the dog yesterday, benefiting from the delightful sunshine, I was a bit taken aback to see an elderly (i.e. older than me, and I can remember the days when you could claim a ?fiver if you spotted the chap with the relevant newspaper at the seaside and tapped him on the shoulder, while showing him the same newspaper – maybe a bit convoluted, but those in the know will remember) couple, he with a pair of loppers in his hand and she standing beside him with a carrier bag. I asked what they were doing, and she replied that they were cutting away the brambles as these were “… choking the poor young trees”. I asked them to stop, as the brambles, on the contrary, protect the young trees, which have grown very well in their thorny embrace, and are, furthermore, happy not to have to compete with grass. I don’t think they believed me, though, as he didn’t stop. But maybe he was just a bit hard of hearing (I wouldn’t like to suggest he found it hard to change his opinion).

The anemones beside the stream are looking very pretty, and so is the blossom on the trees beside the walk there.

Well, I did manage to put the last lot of minutes (March 2020) on to the Minutes of Meetings page – no thanks to WordPress.com, who keep changing the way things are done. Improvements, no doubt, but just as annoying as Microsoft is whenever they bring out a new version of Word. All of a sudden, after you’d learnt how to format something in a certain way, there they go, improving everything, and you can’t find it again.

All for now.

Our lives have altered so much since I last wrote here.

The days are getting longer, the camellia outside my front window at home is in bloom (and looks wonderful), this last week has been sunny and bright, and the mud in HBUF is just about starting to dry up (but better not tempt fate there).

We are all now waiting to get through these difficult times. I am so grateful to be able to take a daily walk with my dog through HBUF.

Little did we know at our last monthly meeting on 9th March that there could be no more meetings for a while. I shall be posting those minutes on this website as soon as I have remembered how to do it …

4th March 2020

Till the Parish (Central Swindon North Parish Council) have completed their ecology report on HBUF land, we aren’t able to plant anything within our leased property.

We should be able to find out soon when this report will be taking place.

• No HBUF meeting on Monday 10^th February.
• Next HBUF meeting on Monday 9^th March.
• The parish has given permission for the trees to stay on Cricklade Field (apart from some that were too close to the gas pipe).
• Work party on Saturday 8^th February, Cricklade Field to move those trees and to re-stake those that need it.
• Another work party on Saturday and Sunday, 15^th and 16^th  February, to plant on the parish land behind the football changing rooms.

Well, we planted the hollies on Saturday 18th January, we few, we happy few, we band of brothers (and sisters).

This is the letter I sent to the Swindon Advertiser on 11th January 2020. It is a response to the articles of 4th and 10th January, which you may have read about.

They haven’t yet published my letter, so here it is in full:

11^th January 2020

Mr Pete Gavan, Editor

Swindon Advertiser

Letters@swindonadvertiser.co.uk

Dear Sir

Re: Hreod Burna Urban Forest

With reference to the articles of 4^th and 10^th January wherein Josie Lewis, a Wroughton resident, outlines her opposition to the planting of trees in Gorse Hill and Pinehurst: as a fellow Trustee of HBUF, I am disturbed and dismayed by this person’s attacks on our group.  HBUF is a charitable trust that, as our name suggests, exists to promote wildlife, woodland and the planting of trees in an urban area, for the benefit of the local community. 

As a matter of record, at the last full Parish Council meeting 18^th December 2019, it was agreed that the trees planted on the Cricklade Field should remain. 

This person has been fiercely against any trees on the Cricklade Field from the very beginning, and has changed her arguments each time they were shown to be incorrect.  These arguments have ranged from ‘open space’ being legally different from ‘public open space’ to the suggestion that HBUF would be breaking our lease if we planted trees in certain areas of our land. 

She says that public open space is “by definition […] a sports ground or playing field”.  This is not the case, as there is no statutory definition of this phrase.  Note, however:-

Section 20 of the Open Spaces Act 1906 states that the “expression `open space’ means any land, whether inclosed or not, on which there are no buildings or of which not more than one-twentieth part is covered with buildings, and the whole of the remainder of which is laid out as a garden or is used for purposes of recreation, or lies waste and unoccupied.”

Memorandum by The Open Spaces Society (TCP 19)

Select Committee on Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs – Memoranda April 1999

In both 4^th and 10^th January articles your explanation of the link between Swindon Borough Council, the Central Swindon North Parish Council and HBUF is unsatisfactory.  HBUF does not run the area on behalf of the Parish.  There is a lease; it existed between SBC and HBUF; it now exists between the Parish and HBUF.

The minutes of our meetings are on public record and may be read on our website hreodburnaurbanforest.com.  These will support all of the information I refer to in this letter.  They show where opposing opinions have been voiced, as well as proposals and decisions made on a democratic basis.

I am most concerned, in these worrying times of climate crisis, that this person has seen fit to denigrate all that we are attempting to do.

Mary Farragher

Secretary, HBUF With endorsement by fellow Trustees Kate Henery, Treasurer, and Sue Gwinnell, Vice Chair