Proud to be a NIMBY

Proud to be a NIMBY

The sandpit is now thick rich brown like chocolate cake with a tarmac filling and a filigree of metal fence between us and them. The house across the road is FOR SALE. There are ten houses for sale along the road from Aldeburgh past Britten’s Red House to Theberton and four SOLD. The swell of blue Sizewell Lettings signs grows with its WORK HARD REST EASY slogan. I found myself yelling at full volume at the new one on the Aldeburgh roundabout.

It’s hard to explain the trauma. Since 2017 I have lost both parents, uncles, aunts, godparents, Mum’s and Dad’s best friends. I have used writing poetry to heal, to process the shock, grief, pain, anger, void, reconciliation and even celebration that occurs after a death. Yet these body blows are daily. These are preparatory works for a consent order that has not been signed and was rejected by the Planning Inspectorate due to lack of water. East Anglia is the driest area in the UK. Satellite images of Sizewell show the extent of desertification that the tree felling has caused. Soil erosion next without those tree roots on a febrile coast. Remember Dunwich’s Church bells ringing under the sea? Slaughden was an active fishing village and the Aldeburgh Moot Hall in the middle of town.

It takes 300 years for a tree to grow and half a day for it to be hacked to death. We are celebrating Jane Austen’s 250th birthday in Aldeburgh this year (she had a crush on George Crabbe). The trees chopped down last week and throughout the whole of last year are older than her. “What they must have seen,” said the farming neighbour who has lost her livelihood.

The pain is because it’s not necessary. It’s not a natural disaster. If 30,000 trees were destroyed by a tornado off the East Anglian coast it would be front page news. One sycamore made the front pages. If forest fires turned acres of Suffolk land into desert it would be on the ITV News. SZC sneaks in with steady stealth and The Media is quiet. They steal tax payers’ money to fund it, raise our electricity bills, start work before the money is secured, silence the RSPB and are ruining what makes Suffolk so extraordinarily beautiful and healing and inspiring as well a champion of fighting carbon emissions. No British investors will touch it.

We have 12 more years of this. Look at Hinkley. Look at HS2. Yes, I am a NIMBY. And proud to be one.

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