I love Sundays. The birds sing their hearts out with relief and the machinery is lined up like pretty maids all in a row in the fertile fields. It gives time to assess the devastation.
Pretty Road is uglified with tree stumps and hacked hedges. The farmer had his land compulsorily purchased by Sizewell but before they had paid him they started cutting down the three hundred year old oak trees.
“You can’t do that,” he said.
“We’ve got a temporary compulsory purchase order.”
“So the wood is mine, anyway?”
“No, we’ve pre-sold that.”
Apparently it’s going to Woodbridge for the building of the Sutton Hoo ship. Another neat Sizewell publicity stunt?
There is a wren singing on the silent black caterpillar with open views where once there were rows of trees and hedgerows protecting the fields. They have now paid the farmer his money and it’s enough, dear taxpayer, but he wants his land not money. And he will have to pay 40% tax on it.
He pointed out the oaks that are to go. Red dots mark the axe. There are trees with wire stapled fast over their holes to keep out the bats and areas fenced off for the chop with ironic signs saying ‘Ecological Area Keep Out’.
He asks the lad why he is cutting down all these oaks when there is space for them beside the single lane bypass. “I don’t know,” he says.
According to the farmer, the total tree death toll to date for the Sizewell C project, which as yet has no Final Investment Decision, is 30,000.
ness365 