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Two more out of town superstores refused in Herefordshire today.

24/9/2014

Breaking News: Two superstore planning applications in Leominster have been refused by Herefordshire Council planning committee. (News feed as it happened here).

This means that the county's planning committee has now turned down six consecutive planning applications for large out of town superstore developments in Herefordshire during the last three years. First Ledbury, then two in Leominster, then Ross, now two resubmissions in Leominster.

The substantive grounds for refusal have all hinged on the negative impact that they would have on the viability and vitality of the existing town centres.

Great news for independent retail and sustainable jobs in Herefordshire. Sainsbury's and your cronies - when are you going to take the hint that your predatory retail practices are not wanted here? Please go away.

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Ledbury Mayor in non resignation shock. Exclusive.

24/9/2014

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Reports of Cllr Bob Barnes’ imminent demise appear to have been greatly exaggerated.

It would indeed be a sad day if the Mayor of Ledbury were asked to step down before his term was out, but Jan Long should not be overly troubled at the present moment.

As far as can be established, there have been no calls for Bob’s resignation as a Ledbury Town Councillor, much less from his position as Mayor. A stalwart of the community and talented PR professional, Mrs Long appears to have become hopelessly muddled with the actualité.

The interesting question as ever, is who might have fed her such an inaccurate version of events.

Surely Ledbury’s small-town Machiavelli hasn't been up to his old tricks again?

Politics

Jan might well be on to something when she suggests there are dark political forces at work in Ledbury’s so-called ‘non-political’ council – but not perhaps from the direction she is hinting at.
Writing in the Ledbury Reporter, Mrs Long says:

‘I was … extremely dismayed and saddened to read the report relating to calls for our mayor, Bob Barnes, to step down. Why? Do those who have maligned Bob have an 'agenda' not known to members of the public? Surely such discord within the council can only bring it into disrepute. I have never before been aware of such petty and unnecessary conduct, and cannot help but wonder if there is a political issue with a touch of self-positioning for the local elections next year?'

Where Jan has become confused is believing the ill-informed tittle-tattle that Bob Barnes was asked to step down as chair of the Neighbourhood Plan at the June meeting of the working group. Since I was at the meeting, I can confirm that this is totally incorrect. Let me put the record straight.

When he became Mayor, Bob Barnes had said that he would not have time to devote fully to the Neighbourhood Plan and he would need to hand over the chairmanship to someone else. Given the problems with leadership and the pace of progress in and outside of meetings, it was very delicately raised by the vice chair, Nina Shields, whether the management of the Neighbourhood Plan might be looked at afresh, particularly in light of the Mayor’s intensely busy schedule and the changing planning context. Perhaps more people could be brought into the ambit of project management and strategy she suggested… Point blank, he said he didn’t think this would be necessary. Perhaps unwisely, I then gently pressed him by reminding him of his own promise to hand over the reins once installed as Mayor.

Shock

What happened next took everyone by surprise. Clearly discomposed, and before any further discussion, Bob precipitately announced that we have a vote of confidence in him. There was a chorus of: No Bob, that’s not what’s being said. Ward councillor, Terry Widdows stepped in and tried to calm things by saying all that was needed was a discussion about changing things in a positive way. Bob wouldn’t hear of it. At this point, the meeting descended into a shambles. The chair should have immediately adjourned proceedings to allow a cooling of emotions. That he did not was clearly an error of judgement.

So let’s be clear: it was Bob Barnes himself who suggested his position be put to the vote, not anybody else. Nobody called for his resignation. Those people who are saying otherwise, for their own political advantage, are not telling the truth.

As usual, Ledbury’s favourite game of Chinese whispers whipped up the episode into precisely the opposite of what happened: nobody wanted rid of Bob from the Neighbourhood Plan. All that was asked was for some alternative voices to be brought into the decision-making frame. Was that such a heinous proposal?

The context of Nina’s suggestion is that as Mayor, Bob Barnes and the Town Clerk are the only two individuals who are allowed - by their own diktat - to communicate with the Neighbourhood Planning consultant, Sally Tagg. Not only is this operationally unsatisfactory, particularly given their very busy diaries, but it is contrary to the principles of openness and accountability. The NP’s centrality to the future of Ledbury demands that a wider pool of knowledge, ideas and perspectives need to be fed into the process than the Mayor’s and Clerk’s, valuable though these are.

What we see here, as so often with Ledbury Town Council when there is a hint of dissent, is a return to default position: get things under wraps, have decisions made by a small, unaccountable inner circle, fall back on precedent and procedure, and shut out any opposing voices, even when they represent clear strands of reasonable opinion. Being blunt, the management of the Neighbourhood Plan had become undemocratic and unworkable. The issue was not particularly Bob Barnes, but questions about due process and policy.

The irony of this, is that since the infamous ‘Resign’ meeting, a revised set of arrangements have been amicably agreed, subject to ratification by full Town Council on 2 October. Bob will be joined by Terry Widdows as co-chair and Nina Shields will chair meetings, something she is very good at. Everybody, including Bob has said that they are comfortable and satisfied with the changes. What we have is exactly the outcome that Nina was quietly proposing in the first place.

Did we really have to go through all this pain to get there?

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Hands Off The Neighbourhood Plan: Let’s All Play Fair

11/9/2014

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Photo: Peete Stewart

Is it ‘fair’ to demand that all Ledbury town councillors should get involved with the Neighbourhood Plan? This was the question that local journalist Gary Bills-Geddes put to me following a letter recently published in the Ledbury Reporter which I had signed, along with three other town councillors.

This is what we said: “Ledbury is under intense pressure from building development… The time for empty talk in meetings is now at an end. It’s all hands to the pump. What Ledbury needs right now is action delivered by a group of fully committed, energetic town councillors working with local residents and technical experts.

If they genuinely care about our town, each and every Ledbury town councillor must now get themselves involved in bringing the Neighbourhood Plan to fruition as their number one priority.”

Some town councillors found this suggestion to be offensive. To them I apologise if they feel slighted by the letter; it wasn’t intended to insult but simply to remind them that the future of our town is at stake. Forget car-parking charges, or grass cutting, or closure of public toilets. These are important issues but are insignificant in comparison to the building free-for-all that is about to happen on the fields and green spaces in and around Ledbury.

A town councillor friend asked me if I thought that ‘battering people over the head’ was the best way of gaining their cooperation. He has a point. Sadly however, gentle persuasion and polite requests for support, have gone largely unheeded.

The Neighbourhood Plan group has been trundling along in unhurried fashion for eighteen months. Just six councillors have given it their active support, which means the remaining two thirds have contributed little or nothing to the effort. Our slow progress is partly due to their lack of interest: the group is short of people, it desperately needs more pairs of hands.

Contrary to a lot of misinformed comment around town, the Neighbourhood Plan is not a bit of bureaucratic fluff or a fruitless paper exercise. It is an essential piece of the planning jigsaw, allowing our local community to set out its preferences for building and infrastructure development over the next decade. Once it is adopted by referendum, it will become a legally binding planning framework guiding all development that takes place here: housing, business, retail, open space, leisure, town centre and more.

The central issues are what we value right now, what we want to see protected and conserved in future, and what positive changes, in terms of places and spaces, would benefit the lives of our residents. These are not side issues.

The Neighbourhood Plan is probably the most important single initiative that has come Ledbury Town Council’s way in its entire history.

So is it “fair" to call for busy town councillors to get involved, on top of everything else they are doing? I think so. I’m also sure that the residents of Ledbury would expect their town councillors to be directing at least some of their energies and talents into this single project which is the key to our well-being and prosperity for years to come. The real question is why any town councillor should feel the Neighbourhood Plan is not a top priority?

To those councillors who are making a lot of noise, and rightly so, about the future of Lawnside Road, the Recreation Ground, about provision of social housing, about the need for sports facilities - all vitally important topics - I say this: the best place to focus your efforts is by getting involved in the Neighbourhood Plan, for it is this project that will yield the practical results that you seek.

One final point: do those councillors who have desisted from making a contribution so far, think it is fair that the entire responsibility for the Neighbourhood Plan should be shouldered by just six of their colleagues?

It’s now time to put aside egos and political agendas and in fairness to our community, begin working together for the long term good of the town. In May 2015, the electors of Ledbury will be looking for a progress update.

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Don't Question Us: Ledbury's Mayor Bob Barnes Hits Back

7/9/2014

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Ledbury's Mayor Bob Barnes hit the headlines (Ledbury Reporter 22 August) again the other week saying that the 'commitment and ability of fellow councillors' should not be called into question. Was he right? Take the poll.

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Insider Dealing in Ledbury Town Council: A Toxic Brew

7/9/2014

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Guido Fawkes. Not clever enough.

Four Ledbury Town Councillors are going to resign their seats – but not yet.

If Cllr Allen Conway’s inside information is to be trusted, a mystery quartet is planning to stand down at next May’s town election.

The revelation has triggered a major political rumpus, and has nearly threatened to derail the entire Neighbourhood Planning process.

What really set the cat among the pigeons was Cllr Liz Harvey’s email to fellow town councillors suggesting that those who were planning to stand aside in 2015 should not wait, but consider doing so right now, with the advent of the by-election caused by Cllr Melanie Roberts’ recent resignation. This is what she said:

“If we are to have another election in the town, let’s use this as an opportunity for any councillors who no longer feel able to meet the commitment of time and intellect now being demanded by this role, to step aside to enable those with an appetite for the challenge to come forward.”

Having been leaked the email and scenting a good story, Ledbury Reporter journalist Gary Bills-Geddes, asked whether this was a call for mass resignations. In his report (22 August), he says, Cllr Harvey has made ‘several calls in recent years’ to this effect. People are scratching their heads at this. I can recall just one instance centring on her decision to participate in the 2012 by-election to test her democratic mandate following the supermarket conflict. Journalistic license perhaps? Over to you Gary…

On the question of democratic legitimacy, it seems that many town councillors are extremely sensitive: only four of them have been elected by popular vote, while the remaining fourteen (80% of the council) were either elected unopposed or co-opted in 2011, there being insufficient candidates to fill all vacancies. (This is a pattern which is repeated in town and parish councils throughout the country.)

Kremlinologists who watch the ebb and flow of Town Council affairs, were hardly surprised therefore that Cllr Harvey’s admittedly feisty comments and Mr Bills-Geddes’ press report, would unleash a volcanic reaction. Weighing into the row, Mayor Bob Barnes reportedly said that the ‘commitment and ability of councillors should not be called into question’ adding, ‘is she still playing that tune?’

Putting aside the extraordinary idea that town councillors are above criticism, Cllr Barnes’ comments echo the widespread, but utterly mistaken interpretation of her remarks within Ledbury Town Council. The Old Guard gets touchy on this subject. Red rag to a bull, most councillors construed the email as calling for resignations en masse.

But was she? Cllr Harvey maintains that she was simply suggesting that the ‘retiring four’, if they weren’t up for the fight themselves, might make some space for other community members with energy and ideas to take their place while the town is being besieged by predatory development proposals. Personally, I don’t see where is the call for collective hari-kari, but others seemingly take a dimmer view.

The fallout from the incident was swift and savage. There have been howls of outrage, public personal attacks and counterblasts, even a threat to close down the Neighbourhood Plan Working Party completely, on the grounds that it is unworkable and poisonously unwelcoming.

According to the council gossip, this is one of the frankly preposterous reasons for the scant contribution of town councillors to the Neighbourhood Plan so far – only six have been consistently involved over the last eighteen months, not a very impressive track-record.

As a longstanding member who has attended almost every single Neigbourhood Plan meeting over that period, I simply don’t recognise the picture that has been painted. Tired, demotivated, frustrated, slightly aimless, yes, but poisonous and politically-charged? Not at all, at least not by the people who have been putting in the work.

The interesting question is who has been spreading this malicious story – and to what end. Attention is focussed on a particular town councillor who, while adding nothing of any value, has been covertly agitating to undermine the credibility of the community-led neighbourhood planning group for months. There has, it transpires, been a well organised scheme to take the Neighbourhood Plan under the direct control of the Town Council. So much for espousing the cause of democratic engagement.

What we’ve been witnessing is a power grab, motivated by a toxic brew of personal ambition, settling of old scores and naked political advantage. (See my blog You Might Very Well Say That…).

Small town politics heh? It’s to be hoped that once the dust settles and the routine of council business kicks back in after the summer recess, some semblance of reason will return to its ranks. Meantime amid the resignation brouhaha, the Neighbourhood Plan Group, has finally agreed an excellent package of revised management arrangements, designed to re-energise the process, for the forthcoming round of community planning consultations.

Now we must turn to weightier matters – the two planning applications for housing on the southern by-pass, on the cricket pitch, a superstore in Lawnside Road and the ongoing saga of the Herefordshire Council’s ill-fated Core Strategy Proposals: plenty to keep everyone busy.

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Getting In Touch With Our Wild Side: The Joy of Mushrooms

5/9/2014

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Parasol Mushroom (Macrolepiota procera)

Let's take a break from small town politics shall we? The woods and fields around Ledbury are rich with delicious wild food.

It’s such a pity that so many of us have lost touch with nature, and with it all the rich pickings that come and go, season by season. Autumn is the best time to go out foraging.

This year the blackberries are as fat and juicy as supermarket raspberries, while the damson and bullace trees are weighed down with a bumper crop. There’s nothing like picking your own produce for free, bringing it home and turning it into a fragrant pickle or conserve, or a mouth-watering pie. Foraging for wild food brings out the inner hunter-gatherer in us.

For me the highlight of the wild food year is the appearance of the mushrooms in early autumn. There really is no comparison between the mass-produced product, all clean and neatly plastic-packaged and which taste vaguely fungusy but just about no more. The real taste of mushroom comes from the living, damp, rotting earth. Pungent, perfumed, woody, spicy, each species of edible wild mushroom has its special flavour and smell, each delectable in its own way. There is something intensely exotic, a forbidden pleasure, about wild mushrooms.

Yet even while they entrance foodies and chefs in posh city restaurants, mushroom picking is definitely a minority pursuit. So terrified are we British of ‘toadstools’, that most of us won’t even touch them, let alone tuck into a plateful. The fear of fungus is deeply ingrained in the national psyche in just about the same way as the Italians and Eastern Europeans are passionate about it.

Mushrooms (and toadstools) can basically be divided into three groups: the edible beauties like ceps and blewits, a large uninteresting group in the middle which are just pretty tasteless or mildly unpleasant, and the small number of horrors at the other end of the spectrum, including the deadly amanitas which, it is true, you must not even touch.

It is an absolute rule among all mushroom pickers that you learn which of the unmistakable varieties you can eat, and which you must not, on pain of death. Those unfortunates who have succumbed to mushroom poisoning (and there are very few) have all foolishly mistaken an edible variety for a poisonous one. So before you taste, you must not only learn which are delicious, but also their evil lookalikes. Ideally you will join a fungal foray (see below) and learn from an experienced mycologist out in the field, but you will also have reference books (see below), not just one but several, to check, recheck and make doubly sure of all the identifying characteristics. If you are not 100% confident, then you must not eat.

Ok that’s the dire warning out of the way. My simple rule is this: there are just few varieties that I know I am safe with. They are not easily confused and have specific features which are unique to them.

Obviously, not only must you visually examine each item of your harvest one by one, but you should cut it lengthways in half and observe if it stains a particular colour. Finally there are occasions when you should make a spore print: simply lay the cap on a piece of plain white paper under a glass or bowl and leave for an hour or two. The spore colour is an important identifier in some instances.

Field Mushrooms (Agaricus campestris) really need no introduction – they grow in fields around piles of dung. With their white flesh and brown gills, they are like the commercially grown ones we see in the green-grocers. There are a few species of Agaricus which are delicious, some smelling of mushroom, some with a vague aniseed perfume. But there is one of this species which you should avoid, the Yellow Staining Mushroom which turns bright yellow when bruised or cut, particularly in the base of the stem. It also has a terrible inky, phenol smell, like school disinfectant. Why anyone would be tempted to eat it is beyond me. If in doubt take a spore print: agaricus mushrooms have an unmistakable very dark brown spore print. Finally, never eat what looks like a field mushroom but which has white gills (Amanita) or stains red (Inocybe): these are potentially deadly.

My second favourite grassland species, which happens this year to be abundant up on the Malvern Hills, is the Parasol Mushroom (Macrolepiota Procera). This is a splendid upstanding fellow with a large cap (10 - 25 cm) across, white gills and a pronounced nipple where the long stem (15 – 30 cm) covered in a snake-skin pattern, joins it. The trouble is there is a closely related species called the Shaggy Parasol Mushroom which causes stomach upsets in some people. The Shaggy Parasol can be distinguished from its edible cousin by its staining red in the base when cut and having a smooth, velvety stem with no snake-skin patterning. The other rule of thumb is never to eat a Parasol if it has a cap diamater less than 15cm across – so avoid young specimens, they could be a different species.

Off to the woods now, the Horn of Plenty (Craterellus cornucopioides) is quite unmistakeable and has no dodgy lookalikes. Dark grey or black, this small species is found in mossy undergrowth around ancient oaks and beeches. It has a tubular shape and a curious leathery texture. On account of its slightly sinister appearance, the french call these darlings, the Trompettes de Mort, and this is a truly delicious fungus, its earthy rich flavour indispensable in risotto al funghi.

Later in the season, you may encounter the succulent Hedgehog Fungus (Hydnum repandum) which also has no poisonous lookalikes. White or brown, this species is unique in having stalactite-like spines or teeth on the underside of its irregular shaped cap. When cooking I tend to scrape these off to leave just the mild, sweet flesh, delicious treated to a tempura batter and served with aioli.

Finally in pride of place are the Boletes - if you’re lucky enough to find them. I must admit that I’ve never found Herefordshire a good place for these classic wild mushrooms, although down in the Forest of Dean they can be abundant, and I have come home on occasions, laden. The Boletes are identifiable in having a tubular spongy structure on the underside of their caps rather than the familiar gills. Most are edible, a few are excellent, and a couple, easily spotted by their having red or orange tubes, are poisonous, but quite unmistakable.

It is Boletus edulis that is the world’s favourite mushroom, the Cep, or Penny Bun. If you find any of these, your luck is in. With a pale brown cap and white or straw coloured pores, a fat stem, these chubby chaps are the classic mushrooms of fairy tales, reclining places for elves and other woodland sprites. Fantastically delicious with a meaty texture and rich dark flavour, this is the species that is dried commercially and the mainstay of Italian autumn cuisine. One word of warning though: don’t tell anyone where you’ve found your Ceps… next year they will be gone before you get there.

Enjoy your time foraging. Learn from the experts. Be careful. And be patient: sometimes you will come home empty handed, sometimes replete. That’s the way the way of the hunter gatherer.

Books:
How To Identify Edible Mushrooms. Harding P, Lyon T & Tomblin G (1996). Collins. An excellent, beautifully illustrated field guide, describes all the edible species and those with which they may be confused.

Mushrooms and other fungi of Great Britain and Europe. Phillips, R. (1981). Pan. The definitive encyclopedia of fungus, with full colour photographs and exhaustive technical descriptions of each species.

Fungal Forays:
There is a very active local mycological group called www.herefordfungi.org who organise regular fungal forays around the county. You can download the 2014 programme here.

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Thinking around.

Two more out of town superstores refused in Herefordshire today.

Ledbury Mayor in non resignation shock. Exclusive.

Hands Off The Neighbourhood Plan: Let’s All Play Fair

Don't Question Us: Ledbury's Mayor Bob Barnes Hits Back

Insider Dealing in Ledbury Town Council: A Toxic Brew

Getting In Touch With Our Wild Side: The Joy of Mushrooms

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Rich Hadley