Objection!
The Richard Jefferies Society have objected to the inclusion of any new extensions of the urban area of Swindon into the countryside, and particularly at Coate to accommodate the university campus and housing in the review of the Structure Plan to 2016.
The Richard Jefferies Society is a Registered Charity and has a special concern for the writer’s birthplace at Coate, and for Coate Water.
The constitution states that one of the objectives of the Society is "to monitor and protect, as far as possible, the buildings and countryside associated with Richard Jefferies".
The reasons given for their objection are:
Coate museum, the birthplace, is a listed building. Swindon Borough uses some of its resources to maintain the house and grounds in as rural a way as possible. They receive the active support of local members of the Society. Members from all over the world come to visit it, having read Jefferies’ books. It is important to them to find a rural setting.
At present, the area is a charming backwater – in spite of the dual carriageway – and if there is one attribute sadly lacking in Swindon, it is charm. Try not to destroy this asset. Swindon needs it.
Coate Water.
Much of Jefferies’ best writing, but in particular the book Bevis, much loved by generations of men and boys, is devoted to Coate Water. The house (see 1 above) and the lake/reservoir are of a piece. They were Jefferies’ inspiration. Swindon Borough rightly cares for Coate Water Country Park. It is thronged with Swindon’s citizens at weekends. They need it. Do not Imagine that it can remain the oasis it is now, once it is surrounded by thousands of houses. And the yapping dogs of their owners (not to mention the results of dog ‘walking’), and car alarms, and burglar alarms, and street lighting, and car horns, and radios. Coate Water will be sterilised – no longer wild. Swindon’s young need wilderness; if they can’t find it – they will make it.
Volte-face. I see from the Society’s records that in 1983, only 20 years ago (see Evening Advertiser, 15 August 1983) Thamesdown’s planning Chairman, Peter Gallagher, said that the Government’s Inspector’s decision to allow the development [of a petrol station] was "dreadful". IN those days, Swindon was saying "hands off our beauty spot". Can they really mean that while one petrol station was "dreadful", a university and 1,800 houses are "exciting, modern, and for our time"? Evening Advertiser, 18 September 2003. This is incomprehensible to outsiders, who care.
Signed by Lady Treitel, Honorary Secretary, Richard Jefferies Society, 3 December 2003
