Susan Jefferies

At least two local people are heading for Beijing, and I am sure there are more I do not know about.

Wendy is there already with the Torch bearers. Wendy and her assistance dog Caesar were chosen to be one of the special people to carry the torch through London, although that performance became more controversial than anyone had anticipated. Wendy was invited to Beijing to watch the end of the journey there. She decided not to take Caesar with her to China, they eat dogs in China ! So Caesar is safely in Dorset and Wendy is apart from him for the first time in 7 years.

Julia is off at the end of the week to join the Sailing team. She will be crewing in a pace boat, helping to tune the team boats and as a reserve for the team. At the moment the biggest challenges seem to be monster seaweed and pollution so bad that they cannot see where they are going !

They are both having an experience of a lifetime and will have a lot to tell us on their return !!

Are the Tories about to make a U turn ? Again ?

A couple of weeks ago Cllr Nick King (Tory) convened a meeting at Bournemouth Council Offices, using Bournemouth Council Officers, on the RSS in Bournemouth, Poole and SE Dorset. The invitation list read like the invitation list to a Tory cocktail party. Both Corfe Mullen and Lytchett are under threat of a great deal of additional building under this project and we have been working hard for 18 months in protest, however neither Fred Drane nor myself, both County Councillors, were invited to this meeting, each of our areas was represented by a Tory, one a town Councillor and the other a Parish Councillor.

At this meeting all sorts of protest actions were discussed and agreed and Nick King seems to be hailing himself the lead protester for the RSS.

May we remind the Tories that when the response to the original RSS was debated in March 2006, the Tory administration at Dorset County Council, the Tory administration in Poole, the Tory administration in Bournemouth and the Tory administration in East Dorset ALL supported the proposals for urban extensions into the Green Belt. The LibDems were the lone voices in protest. Subsequently the Tories on East Dorset reversed their stand, fearing a massive loss of seats at the local elections, however all the Tory Councillors who were also County Councillors who made a U turn continued to support the response at County level.

Sheer hypocrisy !!

I am delighted if the Tories, at this late stage, realise the damage these urban extensions will do, I am delighted if they make a U turn, but please do not take the moral high ground and pretend this is all your idea !

We have been fighting this vigorously and to the highest level for over 2 years !!

40 people eschewed the television and arrived at Barrow Hills at 9pm last night. The rain held off, the wind dropped, a bit, and we had a very successful Twilight Walk.

Two Night jars flew and played above us, clearly visible against the fading sky, and we all heard their churring and calling, as we learned more about how they arrive from Africa in May to lay their eggs in nests on the ground, and stay until September when they all return to warmer climates. They have visited Dorset and Hampshire since the 10th Century, some travel further up the country but not in great numbers.

We also saw a bat, then on the way back, as it got darker there were 5 glow worms hidden in the grass beside the path to light us home.

Thank you very much to Jane for organising it and Nicky from Dorset Wildlife Trust for leading us all.

All these creatures need undeveloped and uncultivated land to survive, to live, breed and find their food. We still have patches of this land in Corfe Mullen and we must keep it, if we build on it, it will be lost and it’s wildlife with it. We must fight to keep them safe, which is why we are upset about being asked to accommodate 700 more homes on our Green Belt land. I know we cannot stand still and I know we need more Affordable Homes in Corfe Mullen as our young people cannot afford to stay, but as Jane said ‘I am not against the houses, but we must not build them on land which is precious’.

Help us to ensure that we protect our precious wild places and the wildlife living there, and find more appropriate areas to build more houses.

Next event planned for August 9th, keep in touch with Corfe Mullen Nature Watch !  Link on the left hand side of this page.

Don’t forget ! 9pm tonight we have our first guided Nature Walk with Corfe Mullen Nature Watch (link on this page), Barrow Hills, just north of Corfe Hills school. We will be looking for glow worms, nightjars and other creatures of the night !

Good News ! Both our Post masters have had letters to say that they are not high on the list for closure. This does not mean that they are completely safe, yet, the consultation still continues, so we must all support them. however it does look as though the Powers that Be have noticed that we need both of them.

We need both our Post Offices !

We are delighted with our new bus to Poole and Wimborne, and I notice that it is being well used, even more so while Canford Bridge is being repaired.

However the people of Wareham are less pleased with adjustments to the bus timetable there. The buses used to arrive at the railway station 5 minutes before the trains to London, just the right time to catch the train. Now they arrive 5 minutes after the train leaves, 25 minutes is far longer than is necessary to buy a ticket and board a train………….

Last week I went into Rushcombe, where I am a Governor, to do a course on Safer Recruitment with the Head Teacher, Miss Faucett.

It was interesting, well constructed, much was of course common sense, which does sometimes need to be pointed out, but there were aspects and strategies that were new to both of us, and valuable.

We had to be tested at the end, and we scored 75%, which I was delighted with, however Leonie was aiming for 100% !

It is terribly important, as we all know, to ensure that anyone ho is employed in our schools and who comes into contact with our children, only has the interests of the children at heart. We all know that there is a minority of people who try to get close to our children for their own ends and we need to identify them and make sure they do not work in our schools, with our children.

I have seen some glow worms on Beacon Heath this week. When I take my dog out for his late walk, if it is after dark, we often see glow worms at this time of year.

A Nature Walk is planned this coming Saturday (July 5th) at 9pm looking for Glow worms and looking for and listening for night jars at Barrow Hills just north of Corfe Hills off the Higher Blandford Road.

Nature Watch Corfe Mullen now have two events finalised, one on Saturday (as above) and another on the 9th August a mini-beast safari at Cogdean Elms Nature Reserve. Both are detailed on the website at

http://www.naturewatched.org/corfe-mullen-wildlife-news-events.html

Do come and explore the hidden corners of Corfe Mullen with a guide.

Yesterday (June 28th) Vince Cable and his wife Rachel visited us in Dorset.

In the morning he was in Mid Dorset and North Poole, he came to Lytchett Matravers to a meeting of CALM (Community Association of Lytchett Matravers) and listened to their problems around the ghastly threat of building 2750 new houses in the area.

• He said that the Green Belt was created to stop our towns from merging into each other and to protect our areas of countryside and that this is still valid, Green Belt land is not for building on
• The increase in the number of homes needed in the South West over the last 20 years has been exaggerated and the current downturn in the economy will reduce this demand even further
• Many of homes in the South West are used as second homes and this is increasing as their is an even greater tax advantage now with the reduction of the rate of CGT
• Relying on developer contributions to provide Affordable Housing is not sustainable, particularly at the moment when the big developers are drastically cutting back their building programmes and some may be in danger of going out of business
• Building of affordable homes, much needed in the SW must be a seperate and seperately funded programme.

They then went on to visit North Dorset, managed a quick walk on peacful Hambledon Hill and ended the day at the Annual Constituency Dinner in West Dorset, in Dorchester.

He spoke to us again after dinner. About how we should tackle the downturn in the economy, which he thinks is serious and may last some time. He says we must not compromise our ideals for the environment, lifting tax on petrol will achieve nothing but future misery, we must simply take this opportunity to consolidate and make better use of what we do have, and I agree with him.

He also urged to be optimisitic about the future, our poll ratings are good, twice as good as they were last time we doubled the number of MP’s we had in Parliament so the future is bright !