WHAT a strange world we live in.

As the BBC was filming scenes of anger and destruction as Yorkley Court Community Farm was razed to the ground, I was travelling around the Forest with the BBC recording for the BBC Food and Farming awards, because the Dean Forest Food Hub is one of three finalists in the best market category.

The irony is that without Yorkley Court Community Farm the Food Hub would not even exist.

It was a group of residents at the farm who recognised the difficulties that small local food producers had in selling their products, it was they who recognised that a traditional weekly farmers’ market would not work in the Forest and came up with the idea for an online farmers market.

It was they who put in the hours of work to develop the model and they who further developed the really rather sophisticated software that we use.

Thanks to their efforts we now have a thriving market which has gained national recognition.

As we travelled to Yorkley with the judges for the awards we found ourselves in the strange position of having to explain to them why the police helicopter was flying overhead.

It’s all so sad – the Forest has lost a community that has given us so much.

– Judith Williams and Jacky Smith, Coleford.