Bill Bryson
and his ideas. What did you think?
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..Yes plant loads more trees, but Bill..NOT on roundabouts, that would ruin the sight lines and create MORE traffic congestion
Chris Morrell
I was recently in Johannesburg where all of the cell phone masts were disguised as trees, very effective and blended completely with the surrounding scenery, could the same be done with pylons?
I would like Bill Bryson to bring pressure to bear to ensure the speedy removal of the many derelict vehicles adjacent to motorways used to display advertisments. Definitely a blot on the landscape!
I've been a fan pf Bill Bryson for ages and am delighted that he's now back here and speaking out against Pylons and Litter.
Re trees - things do seem to be improving - tell him to try the A44 Evesham Bypass!
When they first started to build the road, I was horrified at the vandalism of putting a road through beautiful countryside and orchards but, now that it's there and maturing, the hundreds of trees that have been planted are clearly going to make it a very pleasant road to drive along.
btw every time I see a "slippery road surface" warning sign I have to smile as I remember his comment "what is going on here? how do they imagine that the tyres cross over like that?"
Best wishes to BB and to all at PM
In each city, town and village there are areas of natural beauty; parks, fields, nature reserves abound wherever we go.
I think we have to be really rather appreciative of what there is and do our best not to abuse it in any way - this includes throwing rubbish on the floor, or reckless behaviour; bear in mind that many, many species have the countryside, parks, nature reserves as their habitat, and we do not have the right to destroy it.
I agree with Bill Bryson's comment on adding wildlife to our urban setting - trees at roundabouts, small parks in town centres are nice ideas that many would appreciate; I just believe we need to be careful in them being destroyed through ignorance - perhaps people should be better educated on the importance of our natural world.
Please think carefully before planting trees along our motorways. A view of the skyline especially of distant hills is often preferable to a view of trees. You can drive right through Belgium on the motoways and you see a lot of trees - nothing else.
I too wish to defend pylons - they are amazing beautiful structures and provide us with the means to run all our technology. I can think of much uglier things in life that should be demolished, like Barratt housing.
Is this the same Bill Bryson whose book of troublesome words is my bible?
I by the way like to see the pylons, they portray a strong image!
Congratulations, Bill Bryson, do you think you could use your influence to introduce a deposit system on drinks' bottles and tins as they do in some American States? It worked very well in CT. You paid your deposit, took back your empties to a machine outside the grocery store, popped them in, they were counted, pressed a button, got out a ticket with an amount, took it to the check-out person and got your money back. City homeless people gathered empties and got some money. A problelm in the US now is that the deposit is so low many people don't care about returning them, so we have to make it worth our while.
Thanks
Alice Hudson
Bill Brysons strenghth is sardonic detachment and I don't know if that is a recomendation for his role as spokesman for CPRE. But perhaps he appreciates the irony of his item coming just after the report about the sentencing of the bumpkins from the forest of dean for imprisoning their friend until he died. I think dealing with rural poverty and degradation a little more important than wiffling on about litter and power lines. Or does Bill Bryson think that a few poverty stricken yokels add to the character of the countryside
Eddie & colleagues,
Bill Bryson seems not to have noticed all the trees planted along the motorways. In fact, long after we have ceased to use them they will have turned into crazy-paving under a forest which, when seen from space, will be a motorway map, stretching from Land's End to John'O Groats. Continuous canopy and a highway for squirrels (sadly, they'll be American Greys).
We will use them as lovely foot and cycle-ways and have picnics on the ledges of broken flyovers, while we tell stories of the ancient days of hypermobility and how we burned the Earth to keep our houses warm, though we spent very little tiome at home, what with commuting and foreign holidays. Strange tales from strange times....
xx
ed
As noted in the Glassbox, the motorway schemes have already planted many millions of trees, and anyone who looks can note their growth. It's one of the few redeeming features of the hyperspace system that it provides so much mini-woodland habitat.
xx
ed
Why not plant hedges down the central reservation of motorways? This would not affect sight lines, would make them look nicer and would help to stop flying debris in an accident. Put them between the crash barriers, where they would not get in the way.
As for pylons, just think how many nest boxes are put on these 'steel trees'. We have Kestrels breeding in one locally. Yes, keep them off ridges, but don't get rid of them completely.
What a breath of fresh air to listen to Bill Bryson and what a shame on all of us that it takes an American to be so concerned about our beautiful countryside. I wish him every success in his efforts to clean up our dirty, littered beauty spots, roadsides and streets in general.
I shall never understand why so many people seem to think it is quite acceptable to throw all kinds of rubbish just wherever they find it convenient, for others to pay to have it cleaned up.
May I put in a word for the pylons. They are, in my view, beautiful.
They're not classical in design, they're functional. What you see is what you get. We all use elcetricity, the pylon reminds us how it is distributed. No other physical structure demonstrates so well, the anacronism of finite resources.
I agree with Bill Bryson's view that much of the British countryside is beautiful to look at. However, I often find that noise pollution, particularly road noise, impinges on my enjoyment of an otherwise perfect rural experience. Perhaps more trees would help to soak up the noise as well as those greenhouse gases?
Andy Beer, Hertfordshire.
Trees......yes.....but they look better at a distance. We were so disappointed when we visited New England (not in 'the Fall') and found the highways were lined with wall to wall trees thus b locking out any view of the landscape beyond! capability Browne got it right when placing trees in the context of the landscape. They could be good in an industrial landscape of course.
Welcome to the CPRE Bill!
Elaine Webb
Since Gordon Brown, Yvette Cooper, John Prescott, Ruth Kelly etc reclassified any open space (including the green belt, back gardens, allotments) as brown field it is all going to get built on anyway.
What is now the point of worrying about how tidy it is?
It should now be the CPRE's primary objective to challenge the government's flimsy justifications for the current and future deluge of building on our world-renowned landscape.
The real motivations for all this are a desperate
attempt to maintain what little industrial activity we have left and a greedy, bullying building lobby who will line their pockets at any cost.
This mutilation of our rural and semi-rural scenery is an unmitigated holocaust and I have long wondered how the the CPRE can have remained so quiet about it for so long.
Eddie quoted my e-mail, "May I put in a word for the pylons. They are, in my view, beautiful."
Of course, there is a legitimate 'romantic' aesthetic in which anything 'industrial' in the countryside can be seen as being 'out of place'. But like many things beautiful, it takes time to fully appreciate their 'beauty'. Pylons are beautiful because they,
1. distribute electricity to all of us
2. have a structure which tells no 'lies'
3. they're huge, yet delicate
4. challenge out moded ideas of an untouched countryside
5. make us look up
Thanks for qutoing my e-mail Eddie.
Elaine (17),
In New England, especially Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire, the farmed landscape of 200 years ago (90% cleared land) has reverted to 90% forest as farming that difficult land was abandoned in favour of the flatter land west of the Appalachians.
Bill Bryson mentions the return of the forests in one of his US books. Walking through the new forests of New Englend (You'll have to get out of your car) will reveal stone walls and other relics of the days when they were farmland.
xx
ed
I wish Bill Bryson every success in his new role. We certainly need someone to protect our countryside.
There is, however, a far greater threat to the Green Belt than those mentioned by Bill Bryson - the vast land bank held by the volume house-builders, who are poised to move into the Green Belt wholesale now that government has said that hundreds of thousands of new houses are needed.
This threat becomes even more alarming in the light of a proposed change in the English planning laws which will make it easier to force through developments even when local communities do not want them.
Just heard Bill Bryson on the radio. I thought his sentiments about planting trees excellent but would it be dangerous on roundabouts - obstructing field of vision!!? and also what would happen to all the leaves if deciduous trees were planted along the motorways (would it be like 'leaves on the lines' problems!!?).
I also think burying powercables would cause more disturbance to the countryside than leaving them were they are!!?
However - thank you to Bill Bryson for his love of our British countryside.
I am afraid I must say how silly I find message 18. Pylons are there because the heating effect of burying the cables would require them to be made out of about twenty times as much aluminium. It is a shame but unavoidable. Nothing to do with aesthetics unless you happen to be a tiny bit perverse.
How very modish to describe anything you don't value as 'out-moded'. Short-hand for 'aren't I ever so smart, modern and unsentimental'.
CPRE has stood for the protection of our precious English countryside for a long time. Whilst litter is a good campaign issue there are many more threats to it as well. Overhead power cables are significant together with urban sprawl, large wind turbines and mobile phone masts in the wrong places, light pollution, road sign clutter, advertisement hoardings, congestion on country lanes, urbanisation and so on. Further still is the threat from the Government's current Planning White Paper which could undermine the protective measures achieved over 80 years of campaigning. Each county has a CPRE branch and supporters can do much to help Bill Bryson and his team.
The thought of the National Parks having further control is a dreadful one! The Lake District National Park Authority, an unelected quango has enormous powers, particularly over planning. Anyone will tell you how house prices rocket if you live within the Park; how much better off you are if you live in Cockermouth or Penrith, when at least you can vote for the people who make decisions on your behalf.
I am afraid I must say how silly I find John Wesley Barker's message.
Pylons are there because the heating effect of burying the cables would require them to be made out of about twenty times as much aluminium. It is a shame but unavoidable. Nothing to do with aesthetics unless you happen to be a bit perverse.
How very modish to describe anything you don't value as 'out-moded'. Short-hand for 'aren't I ever so smart, modern and unsentimental'.
Fly tipping is mainly caused by local authorities failure to comply with world best practice in designing their sites. This drives up landfill costs to absurd levels which frightens off small contractors who cannot afford the prices. Councils fail to sort out and sell, for repair or re-use countless items. The only re-cycling they understand is mass metal and glass, cardboard etc. They do not sort and sell bricks, or Victorian pine doors or plumbing fittings, or gas ovens, or countless other white goods, or building materials. They just lump most builders waste as landfill. When sites are privately managed the staffing levels are lower and countless products are saved for sale and sorted. Sale of bricks for example at 拢1000 per pallet, that is at up to a 拢1.00 each, which easily repays the cost of employing the labour to sort them, and money left over for other paid tasks.
In the UK the tip service is arrogant inefficient oppressive, and miles behind the best sites in Germany or New Zealand or Canada who have pioneered low waste outputs from these facilities because so much is out sorted or sold on. It is not from lack of knowledge as LAs pay to send delegates to conferences like The Nottighamshire Profit from Waste Conference. This publiced the concept of ZERO WASTE! Then totally ignore all the knowledge gained. They are power mad and stupid and take kick backs from local big businesses who hate to see any doors, bricks, or cast iron rainwater goods re-cycled because short term it means a few less sales. This kind of corruption will never be stopped until cross membership of secret societies and businessed and councils is exposed and tackled. Councils have policies of tarmac-ing over granite cobbles as a cheaper option that maintainance, but when the surface fails they scrape the whole up in giant buckets and landfill. Granite cobbles cost over 拢1 each, thats well over 拢50 per square meter. Granite cobbles are indestructible and more over slow down traffic; so many small towns had them and so few remain. Big kickbacks in installing CCTV, but nothing apart from contract sweeteners, in repairing cobbled streets, except, local wages to local workers.
In small towns because of high charges people dump unwanted bulky items in empty house gardens and farm gateways and on railway lines because greedy and stupid councils overcharge for collection services and fail to put skips routinely in areas of need. Where these schemes have been tried they have been very successful, but invariable discontinued in the eternal search for cost cutting.
In parts of Europe the day before bin collection day there is a tradition to put unwanted usable items on the street outside one's house for free collection by any citizen. Anything left is then collected with the general rubbish the next morning. This helps the poor, involves no public cost and massively reduced the landfill and the carbon cost of collecting it. When this has been tried or suggested here councils have always banned it, or poo-poo-ed it.
Very few things indeed are truly waste, clean wood can be re-used, dirty wood can be chopped and burned, broken concrete can be crushed for hardcore, all metals can be reclaimed, consumer durables can be stripped for spares or repaired, earth can be mixed with chopped vegetation for wormeries and composting, cloth and clothes can be sorted and recycled, complete windows can be re-sold, batteries processed specially. So many council tips out sort so little, store nothing for sale and are massively overstaffed with 'jobsworths' who believe they are at Check Point Charlie. Properly organized many tips could make a profit and the surplus could go for buying ever more sophisticated re-cyling tools, like clean wood stitching machines, making off cuts rackable and re-sellable. Like so much else in this mal-adminsisted and corrupted country the problem starts with the politicains and and the un-elected un-sackable council salaried officers, who are full of correct talk but who actually contemptuous of the public, and covertly work against their interest. Their are mainly interested in secret payments, and empire building, and covering each other's backs. The first best kept open secret in this country used to be sexual abuse in the churches, the second is corruption by councils and governments.
Well said Sasha Lubetkin. What a dreadful shame it took 22 posts from so-called lovers of the english counryside before two mentions were made of the real threat that the CPRE should be dealing with.
The situation is dire but I wish Bill Bryson all the best and hope people wake up and fight this.
I was pleased to hear that Bill Bryson will be looking at the issue of 'fly-tipping'.
I think one of the reasons why inconsiderate people resort to 'fly-tipping' is due to the Council's ridiculous policy of not allowing people with vans to take their domestic waste to the recycling centres.
The assumption is that every van is owned for commercial reasons and contains commercial waste.
The only way round this restriction is making an application for a permit, which is just another level of bureaucracy.
I am in favour of making people pay for commercial waste, but I wonder how many frustrated people who would like to recycle their domestic waste, end up tipping it at the roadside after being turned away from the recycling centre. Then how much does the clean up operation cost us on our council tax?
I like Bill Bryson. He talks sense. He's right to have litter and fly-tipping at the top of his list. I would add grafitti.
More trees, of course. But we can give some credit to the Highways Agency for making great efforts to plant many new trees along the motorways.
We should all cultivate a bit if greenery where we live. Maybe we should all look after the bit of pavement outside our home.
The lesser roads could be made far more pleasant. As in some European countries we could remove unnecessary signs and road markings and bring back some greenery along the sides.
Folk that are having building work done at their home should be made responsible for keeping the mess contained on their own land, and they should be made responsible for paying to repair the broken paving slabs on the footpath that the builders leave behind.
There are many specific issues that we could list, but overall Bill needs to infuse a sense of appreciation and respect among us. If he can pull that off, he's half way there.
If I can help at all, let me know.
Paul
Seconding Phil Carter and Sasha Lubetkin,
One way to control/reduce the demand for new housing would be to recognise that as the fourth most densely populated countries in the world (England), it would be wise to try and limit further growth in population.
At present, native-born folks have a birthrate slightly below replacement value, but we are importing folk at a rate that will see the UK population continue to grow by 0.5% p.a.
Our numbers are growing by more than 320,000 a year. Officially projected to rise by about 0.4% a year to reach 71 million by 2074 - an increase of 10 million - population growth in the UK has reached near-record levels, and growth at the actual average 0.5% a year rate of 2000-06, if continued, would take our numbers to 75 million in 2050 and on to 100 million in 2107. England alone is home to more than 50 million people, making it the fourth-most densely populated country in the world with a staggering 998 inhabitants per square mile, if small city and island-states are excluded - even more crowded than Japan.
We should aim for Zero population growth, or even a decline in numbers. Otherwise we will continue to pave and roof the countryside until it will no longer exist.
Besides, the places from which we're poaching skilled folk need them much more than we do. We should aim to balance immigration with emigration for a nett zero.
Grrrr!
ed
Hi Bill,
after reading all your books I can well understand that here might be someone who can do something to enhance and enrich our environment.
Having an American background (be it ever so slight now) may prove you to be the best man for the job because this Country has slowly been evolving into that form of Society.
I mean the Society that breeds the enclosed shopping Malls, the ones that strip the shop fronts of their Historic Grandeur and become clones in every town you visit.
Get the backing of these mighty business concerns and inform them of how they could return to what the buildings were, and should be.
Boots, Marks and Spencers, WH Smiths and all the rest dont need to have all their shops looking the same - they have Windows to advertise who they are, get them to individualise their properties, it would be a start.
Get others to forgoe some of their hugh profit margins and show interest in their Country - we may be 90 % owned by America and other Countries but we are still a British people, capable of planting our own Trees - where we like and when we like, we just need the leader to show the way.
its up to you - remember you may be Bill Bryson but you will need a little of Katz in you to work the wonders that will be required.
All the best to you and the 大象传媒 PM Programme
All this talk about pylons, what about wind turbines??
They are solid structures, white in colour and much much taller than any pylons. They are constructed in our wild and beautiful places high up on the hills where they have to cut down loads of trees to put them up.
And, to add insult to injury, they wave at you a lot of the time so they are impossible to ignore. Also it is possible in future that they may have to have a red flashing light on top to warn low flying aircraft that they are there.
They are noisy and useless and they are not going to 'Save the Planet' as the BWEA would have us belive. The amount of power they produce is negligable.
They won't keep the steel works going at Port Talbot going even with the best wind in the world - and the wind does not blow all the time.
Wind turbines have to have the conventional power stations running all the time ready to cut in the moment the wind stops blowing, or blows too hard. When these conventional power stations are running on standby, they are running less efficiantly and are emmitting more CO2 than when they are running properly.
It isn't 'wind or nuclear', wind will not keep peoples lights on.
All wind turbines are are huge money spinners for the wind power companies and everyone on the grid drawing mains electricity will be paying for the destruction of our beautiful wonderful countryside with much higher fuel bills. Lucky me, I'm not on mains power, but it is still my countryside that is being devastated.
I have seen a windfarm being built, you wouldn't belive the destruction it creates, and it can't be all 'put back just as it was before'. Not when it is peat that has taken many hundreds if not thousands of years to form. And the bedrock that has to be blasted out can't be put back either.
In Wales a lot of turbines are planned for Forestry Commision land. This land, we are told, belongs to the people, managed for the people by the WAG. So who gets the thousands of pounds ground rent for all these turbines? Why WAG of course, who else. And who made these areas available for these huge eyesores?? You guessed, why WAG of course. If this is legal then I'm a donkeys backside.
In Wales planning permission has just been granted for 16 turbines over 400 feet tall to be placed on top of a mountain close to several towns.
It is a place where people go to walk their dogs, to get away from it all, to see some space and get peace and quiet. All this will be ruined if these huge monsters are built.
There will be noise from these machines that can make people ill, light flicker from the blades going around, low frequency vibrations from these turbines that can ruin some peoples health. Not everyone is sensitive to the low frequency vibrations but for those who are they are devastating.
What does Bill Bryson think of these threats to our countryside??
Ahh a man after my own heart!.I agree about pylons but when you get to the rolling hills and valleys ,I think us Britons brains simply shut them out . They are ugly ,However I actually find them strangely compelling due to the huge scale.
When it comes to fly tipping this is something I feel so passionate about , We should secretly film Fly tippers,put their faces on a website, and name and shame them. Alternatively dump rubbish outside their front doors. something gaggingly gross. The Camera Technology already exists to spot them doing it in the form of coke cans etc.
What makes people do it? When a business does it , it is wrong but if all companies had to pay for it upfront then surely they would be forced to use these environmental facilities. Wouldn,t they? When a householder dumps a mattress in the woods what is that about ?This is ignorance , Do they not know the facility is free?
Hi everyone
I'm a blog virgin so bear with me - yes, this is my very first time!
Bill Bryson has been a significant force in my life both as a travel writer and humourist.
His contribution in taking on this latest role is broad and an arduous task certainly lies before him.
Nevertheless he has already achieved a major feat for me today - he had enough candour to admit that it is one thing to be amongst the many who spend their lives making (constructive)criticism about life's diverse issues, and another to take on the task of doing something about them.
To whingers everywhere take a leaf out of his book, or several!
Bob Davis
well I for one like wind turbines. sorry to all those who don't. some who say they don't will then in another conversation later say how charming are all the disused windmills scattered over Greece and the greek islands. To me that doesn't compute. Maybe I'm missing something.
Anyway living (well) north of the border I don't have to think about Bill Bryson and his ideas since he is going to head up the Council for the Preservation of Rural ENGLAND.
Just as a genuine question - does this include Wales? or not?
Ditto blog virgin (see no 35 before this!): Was driving when I heard Bill Bryson becoming Chairman of ? something to do with English Heritage.
1. Re his aims to reduce litter - and improve litter collection: I would be delighted if this campaign could be linked to a campaign to reduce unnecessary packaging. In turn this could be linked to the extraordinary decision of so many Councils to collect our rubbish so infrequently. In this seaside area bags are constantly torn open by seagulls - and rubbish bins litter the roads and lanes on collection days
Other suggestions:
2. How about a reduction in the proliferation of road signs?
Speed limits create a huge amount of extra signage, particularly noticeable in rural areas such as this|: it is absurd to have 'no speed limit signs' as one turns from a small main road (still with passing places) into single track lanes because, for example, the council has imposed an arbitrary 40 mph speed limit on a length of main road where, because of its bends, it is almost impossible to reach let alone exceed 40 mph.
3. And, most important of all, Planning Committees might be a bit less cavalier with their permissions if they were individually held responsible and fined if the result of their planning permission was that unsuitable buildings were put in unsuitable places or built with unsuitable materials.
Two examples: This evening I have been in a village near Exeter with many cob and stone houses, some with thatch. A group of houses have just been built there in deep red brick. It is not their modern design which is the problem, but the materials with which they have been built.which are completely at odds with the area and which even a child would have seen would stick out like a sore thumb.
And near where I live, in the South Hams of Devon, an area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, industrial buildings (with a red brick entrance) have been built in a position where they are visible from miles around. Heaven knows we need industry down here, but why was such a prominent position permitted, right on the ridge of a hill. A child could have seen that, had they been placed lower down (where there was room), thier impact would have been far less; somehow they were given permission to be sited on the ridge of a hill, clearly reducing the quality of the main asset of the area, the landscape itself.
Sorry this seems rather long.
Dear Mr Bryson,
I'm delighted that you have this new high profile job with CPRE.
We are right behind you over litter untidiness and fly tipping. At present it is a minority who defile our country but it does not take anything but a small minority of anti-social people to make a very big mess.
BUT The problem is being accentuated of late by recent restrictions on waste disposal. Many council tips have all kinds of restrictions on what one can leave there, eg No builders rubble No tyres No old TVs etc. This is asking for trouble. A rubbish skip costs around 拢100 in London and many people have far too little rubbish to justify paying this. The other alternative suggested is to take your rubbish to a special disposal centre- very often many miles away where a significant charge will be made.
Human nature being what it is, this policy WILL result in fly tipping ( realistically the authorities will rarely catch anyone). The other thing that will happen is a great increase in people burning rubbish in their gardens. This is worse. My wife and I have had many miserable summer evenings with the awful smell of a smouldering bonfire. I have read that bonfire smoke can be 200 times more toxic than cigarette smoke and can cause cancer. This is usually illegal but impossible to police in practice.
PLEASE will you campaign for free disposal locally for any kind of rubbish. The government just does not seem to understand the problem. It is useless to pontificate that people should not dispose of rubbish illegally. They will anyway. The local authorities policies just encourage them to do so.
It would be nice to have a reply so that I know my message has hit the target.
Thanks, and I love your books
David Boyd
The reason (most) people hate wind turbines is the fact that they have only three blades and consequently are much noticed beause of their motion.Old style windmills and wind pumps were much less obtrusive because they had a larger number of blades. In any case wind turbines are useless because they will never cover their cost and are only put up because of the government subsidy for which we all pay.
David Boyd
Bill Bryson brought up a few relevant subject in his discussion BUT lets try to keep it in proportion. The rural england campaign is not going to persuade people to stop dropping litter or force the power companies to bury cables. Even if they did manage to push for the burry-a-cable idea, look at the mess in south Wales now where they have buried the new gas pipe to transport gas from south Wales to englad. Surely if this group really wanted to protect the UK rural countryside they would have campaigned against the terrible destruction caused by laying this pipeline and pushed for a separate oil receiving site in England? Or is my cynical view correct and the campaign for rural england only cares about england? I would guess that the CPRE is ONLY interested in rural england and has nothing to do with Wales or Scotland or Northern Ireland? Otherwise why the name? surely this isn鈥檛 another case of certain members of the UK believing that it is acceptable to use the term 'england' when they mean the UK?
regarding wind turbines, as fas as I know old style windmills had 4 blades which is just one more than wind turbines so I don't really see how that would make much difference; however wind turbines do tend to be much taller so perhaps that has somethihg to do with it.
We plan to instal one next year and we do expect to more than cover our costs over the life of the turbine but even if we only broke even we'd be happy because it's greener.
To a large extent I second Robert Gore (27).
Many of our problems are caused by local authorities, and the fact that they are a major cause of traffic congestion and will soon be charging us for it just adds insult to injury.
Not sure about hedges in the middle of motorways; good in that they should reduce gawp factor (aka rubbernecking) after accidents, but there are disadvantages. For example, a fire could spread all along a hedge; also they take up space - I once avoided a collision only because there was a wide gap between the carriageway and the central barrier.
Wind farms are undoubtedly the greatest threat to the English landscape. No one who has even the most rudimentary knowledge of the economics of these schemes can possibly justify vandalising our landscape for the sake of a pitiful quantity of unreliable and very expensive electricity. They only serve a political purpose - to advertise the government's 'green' credentials.
Unless Bill Bryson and the CPRE are prepared to fight this devastating industrialisation of our countryside they will be complicit in its destruction.
Ed;
That must apply only to motorways in Scotland. I habitually drive the M23, 25, 40, 6Toll and 6. No large plantings to be seen on any of them for a 230 mile distance.
John O'D-W;
The central reservations are not generally wide enough to support large trees. In any case they are gradually being replaced by 4' high concrete walls, designed to stop vehicles out of control from crossing the reservation into the oncoming carriageway. No exposed soil, so no scope for vegetation.
Ed (20);
It was 'A walk in the woods', and a cracking good read of a plan backfiring horribly.
Phil C (23);
So why are all the Metropolitan transmission and distribution lines (London, Birmingham, Leeds/Bradford/Sheffield, Manchester conurbation) underground if heating is such a problem?
Electricity lines are multi-cored, because curent only flows along the outside of a conductor, not through its centre. The cables are insulated and the void spaces between the cores filled with oil. The oil helps to insulate adjacent cores and shed heat through the insulation to the exterior. And they are made from copper, not aluminium. Aluminium is a poor electrical conductor.
The real reason that lines aren't buried is that the cost is so much higher to do so (ex-National Grid).
Ed (31);
Even zero growth is not good enough. The numbers of single households is rising steadily as families erode and single living/single parenting becomes more common. Each household is another house required, which drives up the numbers even in a static population.
Beverley (33);
Pylons, noisy? The ones around Norfolk and Cornwall only give off a low volume swishing sound, not unpleasant and certainly not noisy. And no-one has claimed that they are the sole means to 'Save the Planet', but they are certainly part of the solution.
The wind rarely goes from 'On' to 'Off' in seconds, so generation does not have to be kept hanging around specifically to replace these if the wind should die. The wind can be fairly accurately forecast in the short-to medium term, lending a degree of accuracy in knowing when they will be available to generate.
There is, in any case, a standing reserve of generation permanently kept spinning but not generating at all times of the night and day, principally in the event of loss of a large power station, not a relatively small wind turbine. This happens more often than you might know. So the reserve is already there on call.
The issue of unsightliness is certainly a problem. The green lobby is divided over this. They would love to see nuclear (especially) replaced by things like wind turbines. But it so happens that the most suitable places to build them is in windy places on top of hills in our most beautiful areas, which the greens would also like to preserve. Devil and the Deep Blue Sea anyone?
Incidentally, the burning of coal for power often involves burning quantities of pitchblende, which is naturally present in coal seams. Pitchblende, of course, is a natural source of radium. So it happens that coal-fired power stations emit quantities of radioactivity directly into the air, more than you would get directly emitted from a nuclear station. Not often remarked on. The true problem with nuclear stations is the waste products.
David Roberts (40);
The LNG terminal is being built at Haverfordwest for the same reason that the oil terminal was built there, it's a deep water harbour on the Atlantic coast easily accessible to the largest tankers afloat. It brings jobs to a relatively depressed part of the U.K. in south-West Pembrokeshire. The pipeline is required to join it onto the National Gas Main covering the whole of the U.K., not just England. A similar exercise IS indeed being carried out at the Isle of Grain on the Thames estuary in Kent. Which kind of invalidates your comment about putting it in England instead. And you seem confused between a gas pipeleine and an oil terminal. By the way the other countries DO have large oil terminals, check out Fawley, Grangemouth, Coryton, Lindsey, Humber and Tranmere/Stanlow.
Gas landed in Pembroke will feed into the U.K.-wide system covering Wales, as well as the other nations. So Wales will receive its proportion of the gas landed there. I saw the recent news coverage where a number of unhappy villagers were interviewed about the pipeline passing their village. That particular aspect sounds like NIMBY-ism. There was a similar pipeline built through Cornwall some 17-18 years ago running past Saltash and heading westwards. No-one can tell where it was buried now. There are no surface signs of the work that was undertaken. It's not "terrible destruction" it's a trench a few feet wide which gets covered over again.
Si.
Si (44) 鈥 I鈥檓 afraid you are very much off the mark with your comments on power cables.
To start with, aluminium is an excellent electrical conductor and is widely used for power distribution. Its high conductivity makes it an excellent material for electrical power transmission over long distance, reducing power losses significantly and therefore conserving energy.
All,
On windmills: In Denmark, where they have gone well into the technology, virtually all the windfarms are community-owned enterprises, and this means that, to offset any inconvenience, loss of amenity, one receives lower cost power and often dividends. Here, the prime sites are usually in the hands of big landowners, who have seen them turn from "useless hill and moor" into huge sources of windfall revenue. Meanwhile, we
pay foreign corporations grants from public funds to harvest our resources and sell them to us at a profit to be remitted to foreign shareholders. !
David (40) and Annie,
Your guess is correct. CPRE is English!
Vyle (42),
Just imagine trimming the hedge down the middle, with all the sharp, thorny bits spreading over the 70mph carriageways. An excellent culling mechanism, I reckon.
xx
ed
Si,
You obviously haven't been looking. The M6 toll has millions of trees planted, but they're still to get big. The M40 has more millions , and they're doing fine. The M6 also has loads of trees of which many are quite large, being thirty years old...Don't know the 23 & 25 too well, but i'm sure there are plantings there.
I know about shrinking household size, and agree that eventually our population will decline to a sustainable level, whether voluntarily or not. At present, we have a footprint some ten times the area of the entire UK.
"So it happens that coal-fired power stations emit quantities of radioactivity directly into the air, more than you would get directly emitted from a nuclear station. Not often remarked on. The true problem with nuclear stations is the waste products."
Indeed, and a very knotty problem it is! In the long run, of course, we will have to learn to do with less energy percapita, but as Galbraith (R.I.P) said, "In the long run, we are all dead."
As to copper, we are pleased to recycle copper overhead wires as !
;-)
ed
In Denmark it is now almost impossible to find countryside where you are out of sight of turbines, a sad experience in this once beautiful land. On a recent visit, sitting on a 'remote' beach looking out over much of the southern archipelago, I counted over sixty turbines scattered across a quadrant of 180潞, their constant movement making it impossible to look at anything else.
The Danish commitment to this form of sustainable energy is waning. They know that up to 40% of the power that the turbines produce is sold off to neighboring countries at a huge loss because it is generated at times when their grid cannot use it. Where turbines are reaching the end of their design life they are refusing to replace them. Their economy benefits hugely from exporting wind technology to countries such as ours that are unwilling to to learn from the mistakes of others. The cost of domestic electricity in Denmark is roughly twice what it is here. For this they have destroyed their historic landscape.
If you want to know what our countryside will look like in ten years time visit Denmark now. You will see the future and be horrified.
Engineer (45);
We're both right, in a sense.
Copper is the best conductor per unit volume of the commonly available metals, in absolute terms it's about the best around, after only silver and gold. Aluminium is not as efficient and gives higher transmission losses.
But in units of weight aluminium comes out better because of it's lower density. That makes it the metal of choice for overhead lines (around a ferrous core for tensile strength), but if you bury the lines then mass and weight are almost insignificant, tensile strength is not an issue and copper assumes primacy for its greater power density, lower impedance and therefore lower losses.
I was arguing from the point of burying them and getting rid of towers, or pylons if you prefer. In which case copper is the conductor of choice every time.
Si.
Ed;
I tend to watch the road when driving. :-)
Even so the sightlines along those motorways you name are very often long, with not a great deal of foliage in the way, even at this time of year. Of all those miles probably the best tree plantings are along the M6 in Staffordshire. M6 Cheshire is very open, so is the M6 Toll and pretty much all of the M40, except in Buckinghamshire. Only tree-lined section of M23/A23 is after the M23 ends, on A23 at Handcross, about 10 miles north of Brighton.
Galbraith's quote is the exact reason why not enough people give a damn and do something. With the decline in religious observance and a lack of belief in the afterlife people are only interested in the here and now and enjoying the one life that they know they're going to get. "Today we live well, for tomorrow we may die".
Si.
Si,
A good forester must always plant for a harvest he cannot hope to see. If you do let your eyes stray for a moment, you'll see thousands of newly planted trees whose foliage some will be complaining about in times to come, and under which we'll all picnic in times still further on, when the automobile is but a distant legend with which to frighten our grandchildren....
xx
ed
Ed;
It was said of the great Nelson that on his rare visits to dry land he would walk down country lanes planting acorns. These would grow into great oak trees to supply the wood for the Men o'War which the nation would need a hundred years after his death.
Foresight? Ooops, we started making ironclads instead. Cars may become outdated, but something will replace them, and no-one can foretell that it will be better or worse.
Si.
Well, the M50 has plenty of trees. Visit in Autumn. It's beautiful.
Just for fun:
xx
ed
And, of course, it's very malicious!
Sir-
One of the greatest blights afflicting our countryside and villages today is the massive additional burden of road markings and signage imposed on them over the past few years. Almost any view of the countryside from an A or B road is now dominated by ever larger and ever most aggressive signage. Red patches galore adorn village roads, endless and pointless repetition of the word 鈥渟low鈥, warning signs for every conceivable hazard, brown tourist attraction signs by the million, (on which local authorities make a profit), and the recent proliferation of the totally fatuous 鈥渟lippery road鈥 signs. So many of these serve no useful purpose but merely distract and irritate. But particularly intrusive is the industrial brutality of massive yellow signs, obviously meant to be seen by the most myopic driver from two miles away and often landscape features in themselves. In visual terms motorways are serene by comparison with many of our lesser roads.
I find particularly offensive the sheer barrage of aggressive signage which greets one on entering any village or town 鈥 we get the full suite of red rumble strips, jagged teeth, huge red patches, massive yellow backed speed limit signs (often in triplicate), and just in case you didn鈥檛 get all that, the word 鈥渟low鈥 appears on more big red patches a few more times. In all a visual assault and an insult to the vast majority of road users. It is totally wrong psychology, which is more likely to encourage road rage than meek compliance.
But of course 鈥淪afety鈥 is one of those unchallengeable sacred cows, and as a cyclist as well as a car driver, I have as much interest in road safety as anyone else, but so much of this signage, massively distracting and a major blot on our landscape, serves little or no visible purpose other than the internal needs of our box-ticking and back covering bureaucracies.