11th May 2008

A copy of the letter published in last Thursdays' Standard from Green's Bob and Joy Irving

The Editor,
Wilts & Gloucs Standard,
74 Dyer St,
Cirencester GL7 2PW
 
Dear Sir,
 
Mr Grendon's Low Impact Dwelling
 
There was a certain irony in your last week's edition (April 24th) in two articles on page 15, one recording Dr Caroline Lucas, Green Party MEP, at the Royal Agriculture College, praising the Transition Town Movement for providing positive solutions to reducing our environmental impact in the face of global warming and peak oil, without waiting for governments and politicians; the other telling of our local government's impending eviction of Stephen Grendon from his own house on his own plot where he lives a low-impact life 'off-grid' with probably the lowest carbon footprint in the Cotswold District.

The grounds for this eviction in "planning-speak" are that his house "fails to meet sufficient living standards" despite his being very happy there. The eviction seems more perverse when you realise that the District Councillors (with one of the highest carbon footprints in the UK) lately signed up to the Nottingham Declaration on Climate Change committing themselves to reduce the District's carbon emissions and to encourage the rest of us to do the same.

Unfortunately, if we all do as much to reduce our environmental impact as Stephen Grendon, there will be a knock on the door from the CDC Planning enforcers saying that our houses "fail to meet sufficient living standards" and we will be out on the street with him!
 
Other parts of the UK, notably Pembrokeshire, have added special exemptions to the Local Development Framework to let people who obtain 75% of their needs from their land, live a low-impact lifestyle on that land. As this could provide truly affordable housing in the area, the Cotswold District Council should get off their hypocritical, bureaucratic, high horse and do the same. In the meantime, they should leave Stephen Grendon alone.
 
Transition Town Cirencester, anyone?
   
Yours sincerely        

Bob and Joy Irving, Cirencester