Lighting up green space ...

Whoever we are, wherever we are, contact with something greater than ourselves

The indefatigable John Urquhart has been campaigning for several years to retain the integrity of Havannah Nature Reserve from being entirely swamped by Newcastle City Council's chums and co-partners in ribbon housing development on the city's Green Belt (sic). Here is his latest missal (missile?) delivered to the self promoting 'green conscious' planners in the Civic Centre: 

(The Journal 9th January 2023, reproduced by permission)

 Dear Sir

If anyone wonders why biodiversity is on the decline, they need look no further than Newcastle City Council.  Their latest move on the environment is to drive a strategic lighted path smack through the middle of Havannah Nature Reserve, involving 25 streetlights at a height of five metres each.

Even a nine-year-old child knows that such a plan will play havoc with the ecology of Havannah, particularly nocturnal wildlife and bats.

This plan is a complete misuse of public funds at a time when vital sectors in Newcastle are crying out for cash. If our 78 city councillors are so concerned about putting “development” before wildlife, then they should pay for this plan out of their own pocket.  Already we pay them thousands of pounds a year to act in our best interests, but this certainly is not.  Each of them should also provide an answer to the simple question; “Why are you so unaware of nature that you are prepared to wreck Havannah by putting through this ridiculous lighting scheme?”

Even a nine-year-old deserves an answer to that question.


Yours faithfully

John Urquhart
Cities 4 People

During the restrictions imposed by the Covid Pandemic, millions of us discovered the mental and physical benefits of accessing green spaces close to home; numerous anecdotes and articles attested to the 'saving grace' of being able to walk outside locally, even in the least of green places close to home, islands in which for a while one could lose oneself, unwind, relax, think .... The mental health aspects of contact with nature – even being able to see it from a sick bed – are well known and widely accepted. For this insight into our lives to be pushed ever further away by an entirely financially driven cynical answer to our national housing problem is worse than short sighted*. But it is surely part of a pattern – that our Council's  greenwash is getting so dilute now however much they splash it around, one can see straight through it.

* My thoughts on that real housing crisis will play a part in future posts. Expensive, aspirational housing (often investment vehicles) on the countryside fringes aren't and never were meant to be the answer to the problem.