Look Out Norfolk, Chris Packham Is Back Again!

[Bikertov]

2 hours ago, grendel said:

very similar to the straw man argument, where the question raised is never answered but deflected into another question or topic.

Sounds like almost every single politician out there !

[SteveO]

On 21/10/2021 at 13:09, batrabill said:

Whataboutery

:the technique or practice of responding to an accusation or difficult question by making a counter-accusation or raising a different issue.

"all too often, well-intentioned debate descends into whataboutery"

 

Example. Person protest at statue of Slaver. Person on internet says “But what about Modern Slavery”

Quite hard to be offended if something is so obviously accurate. 

I am afraid you have missed my point entirely.  Read what I said again, carefully. If you want to change something, focusing on the "here and now" and not what happened 200 years ago might give a better outcome. I could turn what you said around and say that the historical focus is "whataboutery", willfully focusing on what you can't change rather than doing something about things that you might be able to influence, however uncomfortable that might be.

[Vaughan]

Well it seems we have now been availed of his words of wisdom.  The EDP reports that he has given his talk to an on-line audience at the N.N.C. "Greenbuild" festival.

He has stated that we must now close the car parks in North Norfolk to stop people going there as it is environmentally sensitive.  He is quoted as saying : I think sometimes we have to be a bit more draconian in our measures. We have to stop people going to some places and doing some things.

So that is the future, for those who live in Norfolk.  We are not allowed to take our cars into Norwich anymore and now we will not even be allowed to park our cars if we want to visit part of our own county for a day out.  Is this what being a "member of the National Park Family" is all about?

Or is this part of the hare-brained scheme to introduce Sea Eagles onto the marshes at Snettisham and thus bring about "re-wilding" of large tracts of countryside?  Better not let your cat out at night, if there are eagles overhead!

I thoroughly object to the naked arrogance of some celebrity TV birdwatcher telling us what to do and where he will allow us to go, in our own county.   I suggest that North Norfolk - and the Broads - are far more "sensitive" to the ceaseless advance of the North Sea than they are to a few people parking their cars in a car park.

Please go away.

[grendel]

i did notice in one thread that the sea was in places closing the car parks for him. (well washing them away anyway)

[rightsaidfred]

I must confess that it has now got to the point that the more I hear the less I listen, I now no longer bother turning on the tv but just watch the programmes I want on the various streaming platforms, I feel sorry for today's youngsters being robbed of their childhood by those using them politically, they should be living life not part of the current protest hysteria.

Fred

[Keebz]

I must say I think everyone needs to stay indoors and only go out to work and only if you earn enough to pay your tax’s and only if you can’t work from home do not enjoy country pursuits don’t eat meat because it’s bad for the environment and cruel to animals (oh but don’t ruin the country side by growing food) don’t own dogs dont fish don’t navigate water ways incase you bump it to a otter bit bored of all the BS nowadays!!!

[Vaughan]

For those who might be seriously interested     the western link to the NDR "Broads National Parkway" is being discussed on BBC Countryfile at 5.20 tomorrow, Sunday, on BBC1.  The EDP says that a presentation about rare and imperilled bats will be given by Dr Packman.

No, not him - this is Dr Charlotte Packman who, it seems, has spent the last three years following a so-called "super colony" of bats around the Ringland Hills to see what they get up to.  My addled sense of humour has visions of Margaret Rutherford in tweeds, rushing about in a field brandishing a huge butterfly net on a long pole.

According to the EDP, she has refused to give details of her survey to the NCC planning department, as this would "prevent her publishing it".  Martin Wilby of NCC Highways replies (for once quite reasonably) that if they cannot include her details of the location of bat roosts in their planning process they will continue to base their decisions on their own surveys. 

It doesn't say who is presenting the programme but I think I could hazard a guess.

All sounds a bit bats to me. . . .

[BuffaloBill]

If it's a Super Colony then surely they cannot be 'Rare' can they?

In my view it will greatly reduce pollution from vehicles as they

won't be going through all the villages and changing gears etc.

It removes the traffic from the villages that are complaining

of 'Rat Runs' and yet they don't want the link road!!

[Vaughan]

2 hours ago, BuffaloBill said:

If it's a Super Colony then surely they cannot be 'Rare' can they?

"Bingo!"

[Timbo]

A super colony has nothing to do with the number or rarity of a species,  but everything to do with the dispersion of a species within a defined geographic area. With a few exceptions bat species cannot build their own roosts but are dependent upon them for protection against predators and the elements. Social structures in bat species are often complex, however the formation of a super colony would point to something making the bats react in an atypical behaviour. It could be lack of roosts, disturbance of routes or a myriad of influences. Think about it, a species few in numbers nationally, congregating in large numbers locally...one mis-step locally and the national population is decimated.

The 'publication' of data in an academic context is an essential part of the research, not to be skipped. This is the part of the process where the research is peer reviewed. The data is checked and double checked by other specialists in the given field against other research projects and in publication refined in detail and concept. Sometimes a second paper is produced which is easily understood by those outside of the speciality. 

When I publish a paper, having dealt with planning departments and ministries at home and abroad on local and national government level for thirty years, I also write a third report which I refer to as a 'Janet and John'. This is intended for planners whose professional knowledge is limited to, well, planning and politicians whose knowledge is just limited. If they could process the raw data, then they would be working on my team and not in planning. One of the rediscovered pleasures of my new job is up skittling planning departments, it can be cruel...but so much fun!

Landscape management is a small world and academia even smaller. I had the pleasure of meeting Lotty at Bristol University where she directed the post doctoral research into the management of bats in churches. She is one of the experts in her field, respected both here in the UK and abroad, a consummate academic and absolutely fascinating to talk to. I asked a lot of Timbo type questions and she was unflappable.
 

[Smoggy]

9 minutes ago, Timbo said:

where she directed the post doctoral research into the management of bats in churches.

Is she currently managing Chris Packham then or is 'bats in the belfry' just an unfortunate mis-quote?

[Vaughan]

Thank you for that Timbo.

It will help me and maybe others, to view this evening's programme with a more open mind.

 

[Heron]

The western link from the A47 to the Broadland Northway (BN) should have been built to complete the route when the BN was constructed.

It was pointless only building part of a ring road. The benefits for the whole county of Norfolk, the city, the population in general, the environment and probably the wildlife, can only be achieved with completion of the final part of the road.

 

[Bikertov]

@Timbo - good to see you posting again  

Happy last night of Chanukah, make sure you have a fire extinguisher handy for the 8 candles ...

[floydraser]

Once again we were fed some of the information but nothing conclusive. 

The bat crossings were the creation of knowledgeable people and signed off by Natural England but the guy from Cambridge Uni said there were other things they could have done. What things? We weren't told.

We were told a colony of bats disappeared from the eastern side of Norwich when the NDR was built. Where did they go? There was no suggestion they're all dead. Could they have moved on naturally; would they have moved anyway? Have they happily moved west and joined the super colony?

So were there any suggestions about how to accomodate the bats in a second part of the report? I switched over for the snooker. If not, the gist of the report was the BBC having another go at the government for not doing enough without showing an obvious and viable alternative.

Maybe the BBC are a bit premature here and should have waited until Dr Packman publishes her survey.

[Vaughan]

Well, at least it wasn't presented by a certain person, so I didn't have to be put off by his attitude!

I very much agree with Floyraser about the bats : nature is adaptable and worth remembering, that some of the best protected nature reserves in the country, are our motorway embankments.  On the map that she showed, the road route went through the big bat roost she had found but there were about 6 others around it which would not be affected (at least not at first).

But there was so much about this that was not covered:-

There were originally about five alternative routes for this road, of which this one seems to be the choice, but not yet definite.  It is not what Heron calls a ring road, but is designed as a distributor road to feed into the vast dormitory housing estate being built between Wroxham, Rackheath, Brundall and Acle, which will swallow up all the farming countryside in what is called the Norwich Growth Triangle.

An extension to the NDR westwards will simply extend the housing estate westwards as well, filling in all the countryside on both sides of the road.  It is the planning officer's version of "mission creep".

If or when this road is built, it will not only be the bats that are displaced but all other bio-diversity (whatever that is) will have to pack its bags as well.  The view across the Wensum valley from the Ringland Hills is Norfolk's version of Dedham Vale.

Enjoy it while you can.

[Vaughan]

Co-incidentally, there is a very good article on the EDP website this morning by Keith Skipper, who is a well known Norfolk journalist and commentator.

Well worth a read and I am sorry I still can't get my fingers around linking it!   

[ChrisB]

Absolutely Vaughan! The road was never mean't to be Bypass, the project was originally called The Northern Distributor Road. The idea was to have sealed housing estates where the entrance and exit was on the NDR stopping residential rat runs.

I started driving in 1966 and enjoyed over the years a full 2 hour saving in travel time to my boat and family home in The South West. Similarly the M40 extension from High Wycombe to Birmingham in the 80s took an hour off my journey to The North West. But these conveniences came at a huge cost to to Dorset and rural North Bucks and South Oxon, changing the very soul of those areas forever.

[Lulu]

https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/norfolks-precious-character-doesnt-need-further-wrecking-8535758

[Vaughan]

23 minutes ago, ChrisB said:

The road was never mean't to be Bypass,

Worth mentioning that even when it is finished it will not be fully effective as a bypass, as there are no fly-overs.  It has been built on the cheap with roundabouts and the Postwick Hub is just an embarrassing joke.  When you are driving a loaded 40ton artic and have to play around up and down a 12 or 16 speed gearbox every time you come to a roundabout, the fuel consumption goes up enormously.  These things only do about 7 miles to the gallon at the best of times.

So the only HGV traffic will be local deliveries.  Long distance trucks coming down the A47 from Kings Lynn to Yarmouth will stick to the southern bypass where there are no roundabouts.

A great deal of money and enormous disruption to achieve not a lot, in my opinion.

 

[floydraser]

I do now wonder about the validity of this need for housing and the loss of farm land. It means we rely more and more on imported food which makes us vulnerable, as we are seeing at the moment with gas.

[Bikertov]

1 hour ago, floydraser said:

I do now wonder about the validity of this need for housing and the loss of farm land. It means we rely more and more on imported food which makes us vulnerable, as we are seeing at the moment with gas.

Is that not the same as losing our own fossil fuel and electricity generation, only to import it from abroad and then be subject to supply squeeze and price hikes ?

[floydraser]

1 hour ago, Bikertov said:

Is that not the same as losing our own fossil fuel and electricity generation, only to import it from abroad and then be subject to supply squeeze and price hikes ?

Yep, we also had an excellent nuclear energy industry until do gooders won the media battle and it all went abroad. Now, like everything else, we are having to buy it back.

[Bikertov]

1 minute ago, floydraser said:

Yep, we also had an excellent nuclear energy industry until do gooders won the media battle and it all went abroad. Now, like everything else, we are having to buy it back.

Exactly. It make me laugh when it appears that if we generate our own electricity from fossil fuels it is dirty, but as soon as we import electricity, no matter how it is generated, it is magically green ?

[Bikertov]

The other thing that makes me weep is the continual 'foreign investment' we seek.

In other words, sell everything abroad then funnily enough all the profits also go abroad too - why can't anyone see that ?