19th July

Walking along the river as I do most days you see the trees coming into bud and then into full leaf and the walk changes its nature, the willows come into their own. So when they decide to cut them down it becomes a real quandary as to how you decide. My gut feeling is that they should not do it, but then I know it is for flood defences and many of us were flooded in 2015 and the likelihood is that it will become more frequent. Then again you know that the real defence is a much bigger project. A lot of work further up the Kent, planting trees up there too, and proper land and water management. Then there is the building question. In Kendal wherever you build you are probably hitting a water course, many of which are unseen and run under the fells and down from them underground. There might have to be a decision taken that you simply cannot develop some towns, but will have to build new villages elsewhere, on ground which may well be protetced already. We may have to move people (and churches for that matter) from low-lying areas. All this would be very unpopular especially with developers, until they realised they could build on new areas. We might have to tell people they cannot live in certain places. But as this may well never happen, even if this should be the right answer and I am not sure, what do we do in the meantime? Few politicians in government are courageous enough to make tough decisions. Perhaps the trees will have to go. Whose data and planning do we believe?