Fly-tipping data shows rise in Winchester and Hampshire hampshirechronicle.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from hampshirechronicle.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
By Letters to the Editor Send us your views on the week s news
A consultation on the proposed solar farm is underway SIR: There is a nice irony to your decision to print the report about the proposed Godsfield solar farm (Page 18, February 18) with the article about the disused Bushfield Camp on the opposite page. Derelict sites such as this must surely present an opportunity for more solar energy without major damage to the environment. Few people today will dispute the need for more electricity generation, but for the so-called green group Winchester Action on Climate Change to support the Godsfield application beggars belief. Why is it apparently necessary to attempt to blot our wonderful countryside and valuable agricultural land with solar panels, when there are probably thousands of acres of warehouse and factory roofs in Hampshire alone which have no panels on them? If agricultural land
(Bushfield Camp forty years on: still brownfield?
Chronicle, February 18) revived mixed memories of long ago. I was there for three months basic training with 1st Battalion, The King s Royal Rifle Corps in 1949 before moving on to the RAEC in Bodmin for National Service. The worst was the three days jankers for dropping my best friend the Lee Enfield rifle on the square! Better was the many rounds fired on the Chilcomb range, training to be a marksman! The accommodation at Bushfield was wooden wartime hits (spiders) self-contained except for a cookhouse, and luxurious compared with some I later saw. .always a rifleman.
BUSHFIELD Camp has lain unused for more than four decades. It is set to return to the spotlight as Winchester City Council draws up is new local plan. The military camp was earmarked for a ‘knowledge park’ but the economic situation makes that highly uncertain. Meanwhile, a campaign is growing for the adjacent Bushfield Down to be preserved. The question has arisen as to whether Bushfield Camp, the former Army base, can still be considered ‘brownfield’ land now that nature has been reclaiming it since the 1970s. The definition of brownfield land on the Planning Portal website of the Department of Communities and Local Government says it excludes “land that was previously-developed but where the remains of the permanent structure or fixed surface structure have blended into the landscape in the process of time.” Only the parade ground is still in good shape.
By Letters to the Editor Send us your views on the week s news
Bushfield Camp looking south to Badger Farm Road SIR: When friends visit Winchester, they are amazed that our treasured city is surrounded by hills, rivers and woodland. Bushfield Camp is an ancient chalk landscape of rolling hills. When taking friends on walks over Whiteshute Ridge and Bushfield Camp beyond, they are stunned by its beauty; the avenue of trees welcoming walkers to gaze in awe at the surrounding scenery (Chronicle, January 21). Should this cherished downland on the edge of Winchester be encroached upon for any reason, it s unique historical significance can never be replaced.