NEWS-re-Kendal-Strawberry-Field

NEWS, following autumn 2013 Inspector's decision,
re Kendal's Strawberry Field and its Lapwings - by Henry Adams, Ecological Consultant, Kendal infox@dragonfly1.plus.com

All of this field is under threat of loss, and much of it - imminently.

LapwingBTOBBS2011pic

With good planning we can have both houses and KSF & its lapwings

Facebook page 'Kendal Strawberry Field and its Lapwings' < click and 'like' page to give it support in numbers

NEWS

Spring-summer 2014

Please write to SLDC Planning against the proposal for a Sainsbury's supermarket where the Rugby Club is sited along Shap Road. If it gets the go-ahead, the Rugby Club will have enough money to build new facilities (including a big car-park and a 2-story building - both absurdly regarded as being 'green space' by SLDC) where the Strawberry Field now is - obliterating much of it. The Rugby Club already have planning permission for developing the Strawberry Field. They just need the money. They have zero empathy for the destruction of the Strawberry Field and what the locals think. But when writing to the SLDC focus on the other negative aspects of the supermarket proposal, such as further loss of business to town centre shops, increase in traffic and carbon-emissions and pollution, loss of benefit of the fields between Rugby Club and river in collecting flood-water (and thus reducing flood impacts on the town centre). The SLDC are unlikely to give much regard to the Strawberry Field as they've already made a decision on that (though no harm in adding your views on that).
Gwen writes: "You can object via email, post or online:
Email: development.management@southlakeland.gov.uk
Post: Mark Loughran, SLDC, South Lakeland House, Lowther Street, Kendal, LA9 4DQ
Online: http://applications.southlakeland.gov.uk/planningapplications/comment.asp?AltRef=SL/2013/1120&ApplicationNumber=SL%2F2013%2F1120&AddressPrefix=&submit1=Go
If you want to speak to the Case Officer at SLDC for more details his number is 01539 793347 (Mark Loughran)."

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After Autumn 2013: unfortunately due to a hard disc drive write-off etc I was unable to add updates for a while.

Autumn 2013:

The Inspector's decision (Autumn 2013), and how a bogus ecological consultant gifted him a pro-Osborne decision.

The Inspector decided to follow George Osborne's infamous Autumn Statement to the letter: Osborne's insistence that environmental concerns should not be allowed to get in the way of economic development. He allowed the housing area to extend into the Strawberry Field as the developer wanted, so over-riding my advice at the Inquiry. ... [The continuation of this section is appended below]

ITV:

Link to my YouTube video of the most biased (late-evening version) of ITV's piece on reactions to the Inspector's decision broadcast on Monday 4th November 2013.

Derek Whitmore provided these links for those who missed ITV Border News on Monday:
http://www.itv.com/news/border/story/2013-11-04/kendal-homes-decision-debated/
http://vimeo.com/78549061
http://vimeo.com/78533163

'Kendal homes decision debated' - ITV News Now somewhat improved by including Dennis Reed speaking on definition of "affordable housing" and that proposed houses include no social housing - i.e. that is genuinely affordable.

ITV South Lakeland reporter: Fiona Marley Paterson - on twitter: https://twitter.com/fmarleypaterson
I had provided FMP beforehand links to my website info on the Strawberry Field and its lapwings, and had pointed her to Dave Weatherly's lapwing video shot there. Also I had explained to her the potential for misrepresentation of the TOG position towards housing if the contention is portrayed as a simple either/or between green space and housing (I had experienced this misrepresentation happening before in an SLDC meeting open to the public, in which Cllr Brook had used the unethical ploy of misrepresenting the green spaces group's position, and his tribal colleagues had uncritically followed suit with little concern for truth).

A brief few seconds of Dave Weatherly's lapwing video flashed by in the first (early evening) showing on ITV, but unfortunately the lapwing interest was excluded from the 2nd showing on ITV later that evening. I do not know who in ITV decided to edit out this information to result in the particularly unbalanced 2nd showing. I'm guessing it wasn't FMP as I'm assuming I'm on good terms with her (we are both runners!). Did Cllr Brook influence the editing?

The omission of the wildlife information in the 2nd showing, and the omission of Reed's important distinction between the so-called "affordable housing" of the proposal and genuinely affordable housing such as 'social housing' (absent from the proposal), led to the false portrayal on ITV that it was a simple battle between Brook wanting to satisfy local housing needs and Reed's Triangle Opposition wanting to preserve the view of an ordinary green field (without any wildlife interest), with the false implication that TOG was against satisfying local housing needs (this false portrayal was very different to the truth; but what is complex tedious truth to TV - when there's an exciting simple battle that can entertain the audience: between good and bad, right and wrong? TV is after all for entertaining the masses, not presenting truth - especially if that truth points to flaws in the establishment, and challenges the altar of "growth". And there's a good excuse for this over-simplification - the story needs to be but a brief soundbite. [irony]
But I expect and hope, that in reality the imbalance in what ITV showed that evening was caused more by cock-up than conspiracy, due to the haste with which editors are pressurized to cut the story down to a brief soundbite, and the resulting false portrayal and implied misrepresentation were probably an accident of these factors and over-simplification of the story-line.
But whatever the cause, despite my warning beforehand - the misrepresentation happened anyhow.

Managing Editor at ITV: catherine.houlihan@itv.com via DR. I intended to contact her but was stopped by a total failure of my laptop's hard disc drive and loss of many relevant files.

Official SLDC contact info etc on Cllr Jonathan Brook: http://democracy.southlakeland.gov.uk/mgUserInfo.aspx?UID=20
Cllr Brook has several "hats" which results in conflict of interest:

1. He has the SLDC portfolio for promoting 'growth' - a potentially destructive and "weasely" word, as when referring to economic growth it mostly uses money as its central measure, which excludes (or acts as a false proxy for) intrinsic human values and natural values such as environmental and biodiversity values. It fits in with the similarly destructive neoliberal ideology and conforms with Osborne's infamous autumn statement: that environmental concerns should not be allowed to hinder economic growth. (see Appendix below for more on the evils of framing a portfolio with the destructive extrinsic values associated with the word 'growth', and 'false proxy')

2. At the same time he is Councillor for Kendal Parks Ward.
1. and 2. are in many ways mutually contradictory, as the majority of the people in his ward (that he is supposed to represent) are against the excessive building that he is promoting around Kendal Parks ('majority' is >90% from local poll data). He thus does not represent the interests of the people of his ward, and has removed and undermined local democracy on the vitally important issues of planning. He has also disingenuously misrepresented the views of those local people in his area who want to protect green spaces as being anti-new-housing (there is demand for genuinely affordable social housing for locals, but that doesn't justify a blinkered approach). However I pointed out in my 'slide-show' talk at the Inquiry that good planning and sensible compromise can fulfill the best of both requirements (referring to Professor Allister Scott's work on the rural-urban fringe). To Brook's credit he has (I understand) done good work for Manna House (for helping homeless people); but these 'good credits' should not excuse him his 'not so good' (to put it mildly) political ploys:

We can have both adequate housing as well as conserving the best parts of green spaces - by sensible planning. But Brook reframes the argument as an either housing OR green space, so as to try and put across misrepresentation of those who like green spaces as being against housing. ITV did the same misrepresentation on TV, by omitting the key points of the argument for having both green space and sufficient social housing for those locals who need housing but have difficulty affording it. The ITV late evening showing omitted reference to the Strawberry Field and its lapwings, despite having been provided with the lapwing video and related information I provided.

The Inspector's decision (Autumn 2013), and how a bogus ecological consultant gifted him a pro-Osborne decision.

The Inspector decided to follow George Osborne's infamous Autumn Statement to the letter: Osborne's insistence that environmental concerns should not be allowed to get in the way of economic development. He allowed the housing area to extend into the Strawberry Field as the developer wanted, so over-riding my advice at the Inquiry.

He ignored the fact that at the Inquiry the Barrister questioning me on behalf of the developers could not win any argument against my presentation on the Strawberry Field and its lapwings - in which I showed that a compromise could be reached to have both lapwings and most of the housing. No compromise was agreed to by the Inspector: he opted to agree with the arguments of the developer's bogus "Consultant Ecologist" - despite my having defeated those arguments at the inquiry. To put it simply, the bogus ecologist argued that the replacement of the lapwings by extra garden birds (or more broadly, birds that might be increased by the housing proposal) would be a net bird benefit, even though we could have both the lapwings and an increase in garden birds if a suitable compromise was reached.

Prior to the inquiry the bogus ecologist had written an environmental assessment that excluded the lapwing interest (despite it being well known; I had informed him of it), and down-played the interest of the Strawberry Field. The bogus ecologist has a track record when writing environmental assessment reports for developers of excluding any wildlife interest from the report that might weaken the case for development (personal communication from elsewhere in Cumbria). A very reputable ecologist told me that the bogus ecologist is primarily a businessman. That fits: he obviously puts earning money from developers well above the wildlife interest of the sites concerned.

The bogus ecologist had provided the inspector with a pro-Osborne gift: so that he could write in his decision statement (as he did): that there are 2 ecological consultants with opposing views: I'll chose the view of the one who agrees with the full development. I had told the inspector at the inquiry, but without using the word 'bogus', that the "ecological consultant" working for the developer could not be regarded as a true ecologist as he was unobjectively and unscientifically tailoring his assessment to support the desire of his source of payment. No-one was paying me.

But the inspector conveniently forgot or ignored what I'd said at the inquiry several months before presenting his decision when memories had conveniently weakened. Instead he behaved like the bogus ecologist and followed the flow of money and power, selecting from the inquiry what suited the decision that those above (Osborne & Pickles & co.) would prefer. Note: he refused to take with him the written copy of my presentation (the 'slide show' write-up linked to from here), but did have continued access to the bogus ecologist's written response to my earlier submission to the inquiry. The bogus ecologist's written response was deliberately delayed in its presentation to the inquiry to the last possible minute - so it would be accepted by the inspector and yet not give me time to put my response to that in writing, just vocally, and thus conveniently forgettable by the inspector. My write-up of my vocal response is linked to within this website. It easily trashes the bogus ecologist's delayed response. That is why the bogus ecologist's response was delayed - to prevent my demolishing of it getting onto the inspector's records in a written form. This shows the depths the bogus ecologist and developer together were happy to stoop to so as to prevent the full evidence-based arguments being preserved in the official collation of written.documents.

At the end of the day the bogus ecologist is financially rewarded for misrepresenting the evidence, whereas the actual ecologist faces a big financial penalty for his time presenting the real evidence.

I'll let you judge the ethics here, rather than put in words my thoughts on that.
I hope you conclude that the system is corrupted by how the money and power flows, and needs changing. And I hope you don't conclude that I'm wrong to make such inconveniences as ethics, evidence and science get in the way of such people trying to make a living, or that it's OK to sacrifice wildlife habitat if it's on the altar of "growth". We could have both houses and wildlife if the greed and power-grabbing were under control by an ethical and evidence-based system, not the present one which is just a sham to hide the fact that whoever goes with the flow of money and power wins.

Appendix

GROWTH - Why it is a very inappropriate and dangerous framing of values - blinkering and straight-jacketing thoughts into a destructive neoliberal mindset:

The environmental journalist George Monbiot urges that the fossil-fuel-driven economic growth model is heading us towards disaster: 'It's simple. If we can't change our economic system, our number's up' "It's the great taboo of our age – and the inability to discuss the pursuit of perpetual growth will prove humanity's undoing" George Monbiot, 27may14 The Guardian. Our climate and our essential natural resources and biodiversity are at stake - and us too. Relevant here is Prof Tim Jackson's acclaimed book "Prosperity without growth", and ... [to add].

"false proxy" - the reframing of the value of nature into the extrinsic values of money: putting a price on nature so it can be commodified, marketized, offset (biodiversity offsetting), and ultimately destroyed by the highest bidder. This is a means of bypassing assessment of nature according to its intrinsic non-monetary value. A huge neoliberal scam. How can you apply biodiversity offsetting to ancient woodland? What happens to the unique combination of qualities that together mean a sense of 'place'? How can a complex ecosystem be broken down into commidifiable fungible priced units? (It makes a mockery of the complex web of dynamic relationships that make up an ecosystem. [link to Monbiot articles and talk]

Values and frames: George Monbiot also explains values and frames in 'Saving the world should be based on promise, not fear' 16jun14, The Guardian. If you want to learn more about this useful subject as it applies to nature also read Common Cause for Nature, part of the website Common Cause - The case for Working with Values and Frames http://valuesandframes.org/ - thanks Gwen and Karen for introducing me to that one.

Kendal Strawberry Field appeals to intrinsic values in the observer, which, according to Common Cause for Nature: "the beauty of nature – or the experience of being in a park – can engage environmental values and at the same time suppress self-interested or materialistic values". The presence of attractive natural features can thus suppress materialistic consumerism desires - which are part of the demand side of what encourages economic growth. Little wonder then that George Osborne and Jonathan Brook would like to see such potential hindrances to economic growth destroyed.

This demonstrates part of the absurdity of giving primacy to blinkered economic growth: A Canadian pipeline company, wishing to drive a pipeline for tar sands crude through pristine valleys in British Columbia recently stated that oil spills are a good thing for economic growth, as they result in extra jobs and work for those required to try and clean up oil spills! It's incredible how "growth" or "economic growth" has been given such an absurdly high priority by politicians and the media that a company can seriously promote their dreadful pollution track record as being beneficial!

Conclusion: you have to understand the underlying aims of the 'powers that be' that put these scams in place: a false justification cloak for facilitating destruction of nature and habitats and biodiversity that get in the way of making profit.