Again we have reports in the press portraying the environment group, Dean Forest Voice in a most negative light. Clearly the originators of these reports fail to understand the DFV's role which in this instance, is simply to promote public debate about the pressures being exerted on the Statutory Forest within the Dean. Essentially the DFV is trying to publicise plans for unnecessary housing development within parts of the Statutory Forest. The essence of their concern focuses on the establishment of a dangerous precedent which will legalise woodland 'change of use' in ever increasing cycles.
Behind much of the misrepresentation of the DVF are senior Labour county and district councillors and the local MP who fails to understand why these organised public debates are being arranged by the DFV. Councillors, including some on the Cinderford Town Council who wish to extend empty industrial units and construct more houses in and around the Cinderford Arc Plan, are ignoring the main requirement, ie, the provision of an adequate infrastructure. They are preoccupied by their specific area to such an extent that they are ignoring the other villages within the Cinderford District Plan including Lydbrook, Ruardean and Drybrook.
Considering the major problems with traffic congestion and the lack of road infrastructure in Cinderford and its district villages, the Government regeneration grant could be used to build a by-pass road around Steam Mills and Drybrook, linking to the M5 and the Midlands. This could be achieved without wasting millions on the so-called transformation of 'contaminated land', which appears to be the new name for the old colliery workings.
Taxpayers' money from the National Coalfield Programme should be used to benefit the whole area. It is simply not necessary to disturb the growing potential and the attraction of the 'linear park' that is really coming together from Ruspidge to Hawkwell and Steam Mills, by selling (land exchange) the Statutory Forest. The businesses already using the old colliery sites fit well into the Forest scene. Traditional brick-making in this area should be getting automatic backing from the Town Council, not being deferred while they consider further asset stripping of the Statutory Forest.
The main weakness is the continued pressure exerted on the running costs of such a compact area of woodland between the beautiful rivers of the Severn and the Wye. This fact, along with Government housing quotas, leads to these periodical attempts to capitalise assets into Westminster revenue. This latest attempt is receiving the assistance afforded by county and district councillors and the Forestry Commission under the guise of a woodland exchange scheme. Unless more people of the Forest come forward, it is about to have a coach and horses gallop right through it, all in the name of expedience.
Within the Dean there is already a surplus of empty industrial units. By building more units and as well as hundreds of more houses, the unemployment situation can only get worse. Therefore let's for once play to our strengths. Let us preserve and promote our woodland heritage which encompasses old quarries and colliery tips and the stunning beauty of the Dean surrounded by two of the most beautiful rivers in the world. We must find a way of protecting the Statutory Forest against all those who are now falling over themselves to remove the family silver.
We are faced with a scenario of a Dean being ebbed by local councillors, with little or no consultation or involvement with the general public, and who have yet to recognise that our woodland must not become just one more bland and urbanised development. Presumably they will be happy to witness the Dean declining into another Sherwood Forest, where a little group of oaks trees are all that is left of a once great forest. – Andrew Gardiner, Ruardean.