I was a little disappointed by the pond meeting.
It was wasn’t quite what I was expecting.
Let me explain…
The village pond used to be a bit of tipping ground and thirty years ago or so the Community Council suggested a renovation .
They did a cracking job, utilising local farmers to bash the pond into shape. They planted trees around the new pond and eventually a lovely oak fence and gate surrounded the area.
It must have looked wonderful
However over the years, the oak fencing provided an effective barrier to locals to use and visit the pond and eventually it has more or silted up and has been totally overgrown .
In my sixteen years here, I have never seen it visited .
Now members of the new Community Association have taken an interest in rebooting the pond as a conservation project, and so a proposed plan was drawn up, the AONB dept consulted and a grant obtained to support the project.
Yesterday was planned as a relaxed meeting with interested members of the village, members of the community council and Association , a AONB *ranger and a council expert in amphibian and pond wildlife present.
The ranger and expert provided positive support and information for the pond project but I found some of the comments from others, rather negative, slightly confrontational and a little unhelpful .
A lot of people had a lot of advice to give, barriers were thrown up before basic information was shared about the project and complaints voiced thirty years ago about basic seating areas were unhelpfully resurrected.
I made sure that I voiced some positive comments about how good the project seemed.
I caught the eye of the ranger, who had obviously seen village meetings like this before,
“Too many chiefs “ he whispered “ Things will be fine when work starts”
I liked his attitude and I like the proposed plan which is a detailed conservation project which can be utilised by the school as well as the community in general.
Things are different than they were thirty years ago.
Although there is a place for bish bash bosh, where the local farmer would sort everything out informally with brute strength, chutzpah and his trusty JCB there is much to be said for getting the experts involved and doing things systematically.
I wanted to scream out “ Let’s be positive
Hey ho
I photographed the pond site today in the rain.
and thought how lovely it would be for it to be functioning again , with crested newts swimming in reed beds and with locals sat in the shade of the cherry tree watching dragonflies dart in and out of the dappled pond light.
Hey, but I’m a romantic
* area of outstanding Natural Beauty
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No gravy stains on it yet !
from Going Gently https://ift.tt/3maWnsI
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