From Cubbington goes national on HS2 and the Environment.
Regular readers of my blogs will know that I never miss an opportunity to mention Cubbington’s champion veteran pear tree (for example, see Another walk in the woods, posted 29 May 2011). I am sure that you will understand therefore that I was absolutely delighted to learn that our tree had been shortlisted, along with nine others, for the England’s Tree of the Year Competition 2015 organised by the Woodland Trust. Details of the competition, the reasons the Cubbington tree was nominated and recent events concerning the tree have been excellently summarised in a blog posted by Joe Rukin on the Stop HS2 website, so I won’t bore you by repeating all that here, but I would like to give my personal perspective on why I think it is important that anyone who shares my concerns about the damage that HS2 would inflict on our natural environment joins me in voting for the Cubbington tree.
Although the Cubbington tree is a fairly old specimen of its species – estimates put it at between 200 and 300 years, so we generally say 250 years – it is almost a sapling compared to one of the magnificent trees that it finds itself in competition with; this rival is an oak that could be as much as 1,200 years old, so it might have been about the same age as our tree is now when William the Conqueror was lording it over the Anglo-Saxons. Our veteran pear is also up against trees of great historical significance, such as the sycamore under which the Tolpuddle Martyrs are said to have assembled to form their trade union.
So why do I think that an upstart plant from a village in Warwickshire that has no particular claim to historical fame – except that it is thought that a group of men involved in the gunpowder plot, including ringleader Robert Catesby, passed through when fleeing from London after the arrest of Guy Fawkes – should be worthy of your vote?
The one feature that singles the Cubbington tree out from the opposition is that it appears to be the only one of the bunch that is under threat of destruction from development. Also it is associated with many others, outside and within woodlands, that are under similar threat from the planned development of HS2. This means that a vote for our tree is far more significant than expressing a preference for the qualities of the tree alone; the tree can serve as a potent symbol for the cataclysmic damage that HS2 would inflict on our natural environment. What we hope that every vote for our tree will be is a signal to the Government that says, “What on earth are you thinking of?”.
Our local community has been down the route of making our case that the pear tree and nearby ancient woodland should be saved from HS2 by petitioning the HS2 Phase 1 hybrid Bill and presenting to the Select Committee in January this year. Judging by the contents of the Committee’s First Special Report of Session 2014–15 its Members were totally unmoved by our pleadings. So we really need to take our case for the pear tree, as representative of all the trees that HS2 would kill, to the people of this fair land; I see the England’s Tree of the Year competition as a valuable first brick in the wall of publicity that we must build in order to drive our campaign home.
By just being in the competition our tree will receive some valuable attention, and we are doing our best to maximise the publicity that this will engender. However, winning would really allow us to ramp up the publicity and truly sock it to the forces of evil that are hovering around our tree and countless others.
So please, please vote for Cubbington’s veteran pear tree before the closing date of midnight on 11th October 2015.
I I know what is good for all of you. I see what you do not see. I get what I want. Cameron’s waffle, waffle. I see what is important. Well petitioners see gobbled gook. What I am fighting for. Cameron will not last one round with a flyweight petitioner in a direct head to head discussion. If I can get the right deal: by stealling your land. The role I will play. What a role he has played to date on HS2. When I have finished the negotiation. Cameron wants you to sign up. Collective responsiblity is what the public has signed up to. Have you signed up HS2.
National Security is not served by degrading the British worker work base. Contrary to Kirby’s jobs for the British
Who has butchered the countryside along Route 3 and brutalised you and your community.
Cameron wants the capability for deal with petitioners. Part of this is a Hybrid Bill Select Committee with no money and little direct influence and not able to move the route by dictation from the group think MPs. Handing out punishment was achieved by Hammond and Greening and now unleashed by McDougal and Co. Six years has gone to Camerons. He has a team with stars. Moonshine. I want to run a team. Obsessed with denying you the power to petition. I have a mandate and delivering a manifesto. Clarity and honesty. Is this. The ultimate insurance policy that Cameron and Osborne have is to send out the most unintelligible Promoter’s responses to each petition. Gobbled Gook and petitioners must see through the game they are in. Why havent all the petitioner to date explained their feelings about their petitioning period. Looking in the eyes of a number of unaffected people. Who will treat this event as a court marshall where the Promoter’s advocate is waiting to pounce on your representation knowing their is not time and interest for you to try and address the reams of waffle. You have been coshed by the naratives from the Promoter Repsonse. Petitioners are being abused by process and no MPs have defended you against the sham and the hopeless situation you are being put in by the coninuing charade. What are the petitioners who have been dismayed by their appearance and the ineffectiveness from the petiioning. Where are the petitioner champions who explain how pear shaped the process is. A costly disgraceful within the mother of all Parliaments headed by a few people whose custodianship of the nation is questionable. Time for petitioners to advise their MPs to ask more and more questions about the integrity of a process that ousted the Planning Inspectorate, that ousted changing the Route, that rides roughshod over your land rights and your human rights with the House of Lords stating it is not worth it but a I I I person who has become confused with the situations the UK is not making headway in and with and a nation where the jobs for the British has long gone as a Government objective. Disgraceful situation the UK is in with a limp and weak pair at the helm of the titianic icebergs ahead. Time to change as England is not out of the Wrold Rugby Cup but also out of control and out of time. Cameron and Osborne are not the two leaders the UK needs now and neither are the heads of the other Parties. Time for changing the people in power and the processes being designed to limit your rights in a number of areas.