rudloescene.co.uk - Jan-Feb-Mar 2020

Welcome to the Rudloe and environs website.

Here you will find news, articles and photos of an area that straddles the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in north-west Wiltshire.

Contributions in the form of articles or photos are welcome. Even those with completely contrary views to mine!

Thanks to the website builder 1&1 and Rob Brown for the original idea.

Rudloescene now, in January 2014, has a sister, academic rather than anarchic, website about Box history here: http://www.boxpeopleandplaces.co.uk/

It contains thoroughly professional, well-researched articles about Box and its people.

Contact rudloescene through the 'Contact' page.

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January 2020 - the first litter pick of the new year took place on Sunday 5th January. The title photos show some of the ubiquitous McDonalds, and associated, detritus in Bradford Road and nine green bottles, not standing on the wall but extracted from the bramble patch on the Bradford Road opposite Skynet Drive.

Reduced numbers today for the first pick of the new year, just nine of us: Mike (already departed), Howard (not yet reported for duty), yours truly and Rod, Madeleine, Lorraine, Bernard, Jan and Dave (with Range Rover replacement)

Lorraine and Madeleine setting off down the Bradford Road where they would encounter a turkey and a dozen eggs

Rod in Westwells Road heading for Park Lane which he had observed was replete (good word for a Sunday) with litter

The following photos illustrate the absolute folly of allowing clueless (or perhaps artful?) local officials to make planning decisions on our behalf. The 7.5-metre high, 67-metre long steel-clad monstrosity now blighting the landscape and views here is supposedly the home of Corsham Science Park. However, it will be seen from the hoarding that the units are simply for let to anyone who might have the remotest connection to science. This was simply a speculative proposal by an entity called the Masrich Pension Scheme whose principal schemer was and is Chris Watt of Wellow. This was no grand science project, but simply a money-making scheme for the principal involved and one which would not be countenanced on his home territory.

The Wiltshire Landscape Character Assessment (2004) states that views (of the Marlborough Downs, the Clay Vale and Salisbury Plain) from Rudloe were "important" and that new commercial developments should use low-lying brownfield sites. So a high-level, greenfield site was proposed for this speculation and our local councils (Box and Corsham) rolled over and supported it and then the planners at Wiltshire Council gave it the green light. Local councillors Philip Whalley (Corsham) and Sheila Parker (Box) who were members of the Northern Area Planning Committee both voted in favour of the development - an outrage, a catastrophe for our environment. The photographs in the gallery below illustrate the views which have been lost and which cannot now be recovered by this or future generations. And what have we been given? This absolute bloody blot on the landscape.

And just one last reminder of the view that has been lost to the greenfield Dickens Gate development and the Corsham Science Park abomination

Howard ploughing down the Bradford Road by what was once an isolated barn but is now part of the west Corsham conurbation

Hay there! Howard in the Bradford Road with the refuge for Dicken's Gate's school crossing beyond - see 'News', 'Rudloe', 'school gate saga'

This development and its associated racket (bloody reversing beepers) has been disturbing the peace for 15 months and it is still only between a quarter and a third complete - more racket for months/years to come

Someone left the lights (and a couple of generators) on, on a Sunday

Back to a different kind of rubbish - someone chucked what looks like the remains of a Chesterfield against this beech from a passing vehicle

Is it a hedge sparrow or a yellowhammer? No it's Howard rooting out a mattress and bed frame from the Bradford Road hedgerow.

And here are the offending articles ready for collection by Wiltshire Council (note to offenders - just leave stuff by the side of the road)

View from Bradford Road to Halfway Firs and another new development - can you see it?

Here's a close-up of that new development at Halfway Firs - doesn't look much like a Cotswold dwelling - it seems that anything goes now

And talking of anything goes, here is the western end of the Redcliffe 'Park Place' development - brick houses with slate roofs. The marketing literature used the stock, banal phrase 'sense of place' - Corsham is an archetypal Cotswold town.

Two bags full (plus another bag of bottles) towards the end of our excursion in the Bradford Road today

Here's the long-planned lay-by for the parents of Corsham Broadwood School to avoid having to venture on to Rudloe Estate sans baseball bat. Note, it is not and never has been known as Rudloe School.

The relatively modest haul today but it's not bad - nine litter pickers, nine bags

2nd February 2020 and the title pictures show a Bellway banner adding to the litter by the A4 below Copenacre and KFC detritus including about ten unopened sauce sachets from those people that choose to eat from a bucket

Rudloeites gather for the February litter pick; the throng includes an apprentice, Jan, Rod (wot, no Lorraine?), Gordon, Derrick, Madeleine, Bernard, Meg, John and Dave with Mike already departed and Howard yet to arrive, so a baker's dozen

Derrick sets off down the newly-urbanised Bradford Road

Between one- and two-million years of human evolution has produced creatures who believe that bagging dog crap in plastic and chucking it into a thick bramble patch is acceptable behaviour. Hard to credit isn't it?

A rare shot of the lesser-spotted crap catcher in the bramble thicket behind Springfield Close

The urbanisation of west Corsham - compare the prospect, below, just 18 months ago

The high-voltage wires are humming powerfully in the strong wind; the Redcliffe urbanisation lies beyond

Moss in the Bradford Road

Farming still going on in one of the few remaining west Corsham fields; the Redcliffe urbanisation lies beyond

The Redcliffe development again beyond the dung heap

Perhaps a cider-drinking mother chucked this nappy from a passing car; perhaps not (this is the A4 verge twixt Copenacre and Rudloe Firs)

This substantial bag of litter was collected between Copenacre and Rudloe Firs

The fruit of the February Rudloe litter pick

1st March 2020 and Bellway rubbish can be found on this side of the Bradford Road as well as the other

A low turnout today: Brian, Rod, Lorraine, Gordon and Dave are pictured, Mike has already departed and with yours truly that makes just seven adults; Dave's grandson joined us some minutes later

This abomination (both the supposed 'science park' and its hoarding) has blocked an important view designated in the Wiltshire Landscape Character Assessment and the Wiltshire Core Strategy. A view, effectively, lost forever to the benefit of one man.

A suburban manicured bank replaces the rural tree line and summer canopy formerly found here (see photos below)

Bradford Road in 2013

Bradford Road, now with double-yellow lines, and its summer canopy in 2016

Rural Bradford Road in late summer 2016

Bradford Road in summer 2017

And this is the unnecessary greenfield development we have today turning rural into suburban. But with no services here, all trips to supermarkets, for example, must involve a journey to Chippenham or Melksham. So why build here?