Newsletter March 2021
Welcome to this newsletter. It is hard to realise that the last time that we met was in November 2019. Let us hope that we can meet again soon. In the meantime, your committee has been kept busy with planning and other issues and we now report on our activities.
SOCIETY NEWS
It is with great sadness that we report the death of two former Committee members, Richard Vyvyan-Robinson and Tony Mundy. We all extend our condolences to Ginny and Nicola, and their families. We are immensely grateful for the expertise they brought to the Committee and their tireless work on behalf of the Society.
Richard Vyvyan-Robinson, MBE
Richard died at home on 31 October 2020, aged 83. Most of us knew Richard only as a staunch and active member of the Society, but Richard also had an unusual and distinguished record as a regular army officer in the DCLI. His early service included tours in Jamaica and Germany.
Looking for wider horizons, he learnt Arabic in the UK School in Lebanon before spending the next few years commanding irregular Arab forces. For two years with the Trucial Oman Scouts he moved around with just one Omani signaller gathering intelligence.
After re-joining his regiment, he served in Gibraltar, Libya and Berlin. Then in 1966 his Battalion was sent to Aden during the terrorist uprising. His Arabic and deep knowledge of the area made him a ‘natural’ as the Intelligence Officer. Moving around the back streets and alleyways he was exposed to real danger, with eight grenades being thrown at him. Despite
being recommended for a higher gallantry award, politics meant that he received the lesser MBE for his courage and effectiveness in intelligence gathering.
Back in UK, he married Ginny. After retirement in 1988 he returned to his native Cornwall working as Regimental Secretary at the Keep in Bodmin. He and Ginny bought the then rather dilapidated Mellingey Mill, where together they created a beautiful garden, their pride and joy. Only in 2019, when it became too much for them, did they downsize to St Kew Highway.
Richard was a keen and staunch member of the Society, playing an important part with William Butchart and Inette Austin-Smith and one or two others in its revival during the late 90s and early 2000s. For some time he was the Committee Member responsible for planning matters before succeeding William as Chairman. He will be remembered for his love of the countryside and his genial and relaxed manner, making Committee meetings a pleasure. He will be much missed by all who knew him.
Anthony Mundy
Tony sadly died this February in his 90th year from the progressive effects of a rare protein deficiency disease. He and his family, like Nicola, came originally from Sussex. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant and his job, first with a leading accountancy firm and then with a freight company, involved much overseas travel.
Later, returning to his native Sussex he set up his own accountancy practice. He also met and later married Nicola. They together moved to Cornwall where Nicola became the PA to the Chief Executive of the North Cornwall District Council. Tony was by this time retired. They got involved locally, both joining the Society.
During his time as a member of our Society, Tony played several important roles; as Treasurer after succeeding Jane Talbot-Smith, then later as scrutineer of our accounts. Even when he stood down from the Committee his advice, based on his meticulous attention to detail and knowledge of the relevant laws ensured that we adhered to all the necessary financial and charitable regulations. His final and quite prolonged task was to work to establish the Society as a Company Limited by Guarantee and his firm guidance was invaluable in creating a robust framework for this endeavour.
Tony’s expert views, as well as his kind and warm company, will be badly missed by his many friends among our members. Between them the commitment and service to the Society of Tony and Nicola has been enormous and we owe them a big debt of gratitude.
EVENTS
Annual General Meeting
We are conscious that, for obvious reasons, we did not hold an AGM in November of last year. The committee are to meet by Zoom again shortly, but we are exploring the idea of having an informal social meeting in late June/early July, just to meet and re-fire the Society. As part of that, we would have a formal AGM of the Company. Full details will be circulated, probably after Easter.
PROJECT SUPPORT
Monument Improvement Community Survey
In January 2020, the Cornwall AONB launched the Monumental Improvement Project, an initiative to help stabilise 40 Scheduled Monuments across 10 of the 12 AONB sections, which are listed on Historic England’s Heritage at Risk register or classified as vulnerable. This ambitious project, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Historic England, Cornwall Council, the National Trust, and The Cornwall Heritage Trust, aims to tackle the current limited understanding of Scheduled Monuments in Cornwall as sites of national archaeological significance.
As a major part of their plans, Cornwall AONB want to consult the community and identify both current and missing users of heritage sites in Cornwall. CVBMPS have responded with comments regarding monuments in our area of interest, but if you would like to find out more, or participate in the ‘Online Scheduled Monument Survey’, please follow this link before the end of March, when the survey will be taken down.
https://letstalk.cornwall.gov.uk/cornwall-aonb-monumental-improvements
A full list of Monuments can be found at the end of the newsletter.
PLANNING
Cornwall Council: Climate Emergency Development Plan Document
We said in our September 2020 newsletter that we were responding to the draft policies version of this DPD. Since then, Cornwall Council have consulted on renewable energy issues, to which we responded, and they have now issued a final pre- submission version of the DPD for consultation. The consultation runs until 16 April 2021 and we will be submitting our comments and objections again.
We are very concerned about several aspects of this draft DPD. The policies do not differentiate between land which is within the Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (‘AONB’) and without, with obvious implications for the AONBs. The maps, part of the DPD, indicate that solar panels will be suitable in much of the AONBs and wind turbines are not excluded as a matter policy from the AONBs.
Details of the consultation and the draft DPD can be found at www.cornwall.gov.uk/climateemergencydpd and we would encourage you to make your own representations as well. If you have any queries, please contact Martin Saunders.
Housing
Church Park, Egloshayle, also locally known as “Wadebridge New Town”. Progress Land Ltd have recently submitted an updated pre-application for housing, employment space, community space etc on part of the previous Church Park site. This is phase 1 of a larger plan to develop this site. A previous application for 600 houses on the same site was refused in
March 2017. For those with internet access, the online documentation can be found here:
Trefresa Farm, Rock. An application has been made for the redevelopment of Trefresa Farm, Rock to provide a boutique hotel, spa, restaurant, gin micro-brewery, 13 holiday lodges and 9 woodland huts. The farm buildings are semi-derelict and require major work but the site is in a very sensitive position within the AONB. Our main concern is very likely to be the visibility, design and number of holiday lodges/huts, the public presentation unfortunately showed no detail of these. Details below:
https://planning.cornwall.gov.uk/onlineapplications/applicationDetails.do?previousCaseType=Property&keyVal=QJWE1JFGGX500
&previousCaseNumber=007U1TFGBU000&previousCaseUprn=010003293011&activeTab=
summary&previousKeyVal=007UB2FGLI000
Land At Bodieve, Wadebridge. A further application for 245 houses, relief road to Ball roundabout, public open space and wildlife ponds has been made for land at Bodieve, Wadebridge. This is phase 1 of an application for this land, similar to the previous plan that was refused in Jan 2019 and again at appeal. Details below:
Land at Lower Amble, Chapel Amble. An outline application has recently been made for the erection of a dwelling on land east of The Roundhouse, Lower Amble Farm Chapel Amble. PA21/01566. This will be the third application in this vicinity very close to the Walmsley bird sanctuary and AONB. The first was allowed due to local need, the second was refused locally and at appeal. Due to lack of any local amenities or public transport the site was considered unsustainable by the inspectorate, the same is true of this application. Details below:
Wadebridge Area Neighbourhood Plan
This has sadly been becalmed with no progress for over two years. In part this is due to St Breock Parish Council refusing to participate in the WANP until the attempted takeover of some of their Parish by Wadebridge Town Council has been resolved. Indeed, it may be abandoned, which would leave the surrounding areas exposed to developers. The dispute between WTC and the two other constituent, more rural, Parish Councils of St Breock and Egloshayle, stems from the Town Council’s wish to dominate decisions and the need to meet the housing target for the area by catering for one more major development, which has, because of other constraints, to be in the NW of the town, i.e. the Bodieve, Ball roundabout area. WTC and Egloshayle Parish Council favour different applications, both already in the planning process. The dispute has become heated with a formal Code of Conduct Complaint against a Council in the offing. We will update you with more news as available.
As always, please tell us if there are any applications in your village or parish that you have concerns about.
LOCAL CONCERN
Helicopter Disturbance
Recently members/residents in the Cardinham area have experienced significant disturbance due to slow, low flying, hovering and extremely noisy helicopters. On some occasions this has occurred several times a day. The main culprit is a large helicopter with a bright yellow engine cowling beneath the rotor blades. The company concerned operates from Newquay Airport as a pilot trainer and has more than one of these helicopters. This is a private company that questionably appears to be operating under MOD regulations allowing it to fly much lower than a civil aircraft, even though the pilots being trained are not British.
This disturbance has occurred in other areas previously, namely areas on Bodmin Moor where animals were frightened, the Camel Estuary, around St. Endellion and more recently at an airfield in North Devon where the local residents successfully protested to the local council planning dept. Since being stopped in North Devon the company now seem to be using the Bodmin airfield for similar training.
Local resident and Society member Lester Cruse is leading a campaign to stop this nuisance. He has been in contact with the company, the Planning Dept, Environmental Health, MOD and CAA and is collating evidence. He has requested that members who have had similar experiences, in any area, please contact him via email with as much detail as possible.
MEMBERSHIP COMMUNICATION
Website
We are looking for someone to design and maintain our website, so if you know of anyone who may be interested, please contact Richard Field on contact.cvbmps@gmail.com
We have a new Facebook Page, Camel Valley & Bodmin Moor Protection Society. We hope that you will join us and share anything that you think may be of interest to members.
Membership Email
Please note, our new email address for membership correspondence is cvbmps@icloud.com
We trust that you are all keeping in good spirits in these constrained times. We look forward to being able to meet again soon.
Best wishes
Martin Saunders