Why Greg Clark must listen to Sir Andrew Motion, David Hockney and Philip Mould

March 3rd, 2012 (above: Mulholland Drive: The Road to the Studio, 1980, David Hockney) 

I recently had the pleasure of attending a party thrown by the CPRE at the Philip Mould gallery in Mayfair to celebrate the English countryside. The CPRE - along with the Spear’s ‘Save Britain’s Historic Landscape’ campaign - have been in the very front trenches (along with the National Trust) of the national debate over the government’s draft planning reforms (NPPF) which is feared will greatly harm both heritage and the countryside through a new ‘presumption in favour of development’. We at Spear’s, along with Shaun Spiers, CEO of the CPRE – no relation except in spirit – are all awaiting the imminent publication of the government’s new re-drafted NPPF.

It is hoped that Greg Clark and his team of advisors at the DCLG will make the necessary revisions to the NPPF that this country so richly deserves and needs. If Clark has listened to the voices of reason in the national debate, and sufficiently protects the beauties of the English countryside and our heritage - as he has repeatedly assured the British public he will – then the CPRE will be very largely to thank, even if it was necessary to spill ministerial blood on the lawn in the early stages of the campaign when tempers flared up and the CPRE and the National Trust were accused of being a bunch of pinkos under the bed. Shaun Spiers was singled out as a Bolshevik simply because he was once a Labour MEP.

There was nothing remotely Trotsky-esque about the civilised champagne party in Mayfair, co-hosted by Philip Mould, which drew such guests as Sebastian Faulks, and his wife Veronica, Kate Adie, Sir Simon Jenkins, chairman of the National Trust, Simon Thurley, CEO of English Heritage, Philip Blond, the political thinker and head of ResPublica, as well as CPRE president Bill Bryson and former poet laureate Sir Andrew Motion.

Part of the reason for the party was to announce the hand-over of the presidency from Bryson to Motion, and the speeches were as erudite as one might expect, with Philip Mould’s contribution standing out as the ‘alpha plus’ speech. He spoke eloquently without notes about the importance of ‘memory’ to the English landscape (much as Sir Roy Strong has argued in ‘Visions of England’ that the idea of English identity is rooted in our imaginations).

In Andrew Marr's BBC profile of David Hockney last night, in which England's greatest painter explained why he has always been so drawn to landscape - as opposed to architeture - as his subject, Hockney re-iterated Mould's very point when he said: 'I paint from memory. We always see from memory, and every person always sees the world a little differently. We are all on our own'. In the context of the British countryside, which he thinks is sacred and - to use Morris's memorable phrase - 'unapproachable in its beauty' - Hockney left the audience in no doubt where he stands on protecting the historic English countryside (in his case around Bridlington in North Yorkshire) from industrialization from wind turbines, or 'inappropriate' planning development. 'Putting something in a landscape alters it' was Hockney's retort to Marr when asked about his fears for the countryside. I only hope Greg Clark was watching.

Philip Mould, in his speech at the CPRE party, spoke of how the very best painters (he fortunately had a small Gainsborough on hand to illustrate his point, but could as easily have made his point with one of Hockney's magisterial 'Bigger Canyon' paintings from 1988) drew on the power of memory as the creative well to produce their inspirational landscapes. One of my favourite Hockney's, perfectly executing this theme of memory mixing with life-affirming exuberance, is Mulholland Drive: The Road to the Studio, 1980, acrylic on canvas, in which Hockney drew on his memory of the hundreds of times he had driven along the top of LA's Mulholland Drive (the road that snakes around the top of the Hollywood Hills) to get to his studio in Malibu, where he also had a small house.

When I lived in LA in the 90s, I lived next-door to David on Woodrow Wilson Drive (Hockney sold the house a few years ago to a close friend) and I used to see him for dinner or pop around to his studio, where he always kept some decent white wine in the fridge and a good supply of cigarettes (and other tobacco forms). In the Marr film, Hockney is asked why he prefers to paint from memory and sketches rather than photographs (which he also uses but does not rely on), and David makes the point that memory is itself a form of creation, or re-creation. David no more had to rely on photographs to paint The Road to the Studio (he had two studios in LA, one in Malibu and another larger one beside his Hollywood Hills house) than he did 'Nichols Canyon Road', another Hollywood Hills road that anybody living on Woodrow Wilson Drive would have used on an almost daily basis to cut down through the canyon down and out onto Sunset into LA.

As the critic Christopher Ricks once wrote in a long review he wrote of Norman Mailer's 1980 Pulitzer prize winning 'faction' novel. The Executioner's Song, about the life and execution of convicted American murderer Gilmore, the act of memory is itself an act of imagination.  To recall from the well of memory is to imagine; and imagination is what makes the artist unique, and who he is. This was relevant to the Executioner's Song as Mailer relied on hundreds of hours of taped recordings with Mailer to recreate his life - from memory, in his jail cell - in a way that gave the jagged and broken fragments of memory a coherent, artistically coherent picture.  Only an artist can weave such a picture from the broken shells left behind on the beach; and only the act of creation - and memory - allows him to do so.

Another example in point is Rubens's masterful 1636 landscape painting, A View of Het Steen in the Early Morning, (National Gallery) which Philip Mould recently chose as his 'favourite painting' for a feature in Country Life. In the painting, Rubens seems to have escaped from the world of trade, court, commissions, ambition and fettle, to create his very own Arcadia with a shimmering natural landscape - no windmills in sight, I am glad to report - that looks out over the autumnal countryside a Het Steen in Holland, his country manor and his studio, where he just got on with his work until he died - living with his second wife.

  
Rubens, A View of Het Steen in the Early Morning (1636)
  
The idea of 'Arcadia' in art and landscape is not only about memory; it is almost always about loss - look at Poussin's famous painting 'The Arcadian Shepherds' in the Louvre with its Et In Arcadia Ego inscription (also used in Brideshead Revisted) - 'I too have lived in Arcadia ' - on the tomb as the shepherds mourn for the bliss of a life lived in the rural 'arcadia' of the countryside. To Poussin, the only full life, or the only real life, was a life that was embraced the bliss and beauty of the countryside (the Greek countryside was called Arcadia) as well as that of the town. In many ways, this aesthetic philosophy was what underpinned the essential thinking behind the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act, which allowed for a clear separation between Town and Country and was largely a result of tenacious campaigning by the CPRE.

Mould worried that the government’s current ‘direction of traffic’ – to use a planning phrase that the planning inspectorate like to use themselves – in regards to planning reforms, would rob his young son’s generation from being able to enjoy the shared memory of a historic landscape, as the countryside is so threatened with development and change. Mould told of a trip he had made with his son to an ancient wood (in Norfolk, I think) where Gainsborough had stood for hours to wait for the right light to paint a picture and Mould (ever the art sleuth) wanted to see if he could find the exact spot where Gainsborough had stood to paint the picture several hundred years ago. He found the spot. Although many of the trees had vanished, it was still almost unchanged and Philip spoke of how he felt almost a sense of artistic communion with Gainsborough – something that he fears could be lost forever if the developers are allowed to get their way in the NPPF.

Thankfully the CPRE have no intention of allowing that to happen. Although Sir Andrew is not actually stepping into Bill Bryson’s president’s boots until June, it was a clever idea to announce Sir Andrew’s appointment now – just a few weeks before the revised NPPF is published. At the outbreak of NPPF hostilities, the CPRE and National Trust were accused of being ‘selfish nihilists’ by senior Coalition planning ministers. You can call Sir Andrew many things but ‘selfish nihilist’ is not an insult that will ever stick. The truth is that it is the Barratt home and Taylor Wimpey developers, along with certain (but not all) metropolitan government ministers – egged on by the Treasury – who are the aesthetic and cultural philistines.

I was delighted to hear at the party from Philip Blond, head of ResPublica, that Greg Clark (who pulled out of being the keynote speaker at the National Trust AGM) has been invited to give a speech about ‘Beauty’, and has accepted. Greg Clark is a sensitive and intelligent politician – as well as being a doctor of philosophy – and I can only hope that writing the speech abut the philosophy of aesthetics, and the importance of beauty to the environment, is also born out in his re-drafting of the NPPF.

The CPRE quite like a good scrap. Under Sir Patrick Abercrombie, who founded the CPRE in 1926, the organization was set up originally to fight ribbon development. Sir Patrick also argued the case for specially protected areas of England’s most iconic countryside, and for establishing up Green Belts to preserve the character of towns and give townies the opportunity to easily enjoy the nearby countryside (Access to the Countryside Act 1949). Fighting the NPPF is exactly in this tradition and what the body was invented to campaign against.

The CPRE believe – rightly in my view - that the English countryside is ‘a vital but undervalued environmental, economic and social asset to the nation’. They aim to 'highlight threats and promote positive solutions'. I urge any Spear’s financier or banker who is abut to get their bonus to donate to the CPRE as they – critically –only use their own research to lobby the public and government. And high quality original research is expensive. Earlier this month, a specially commissioned CPRE report – widely published across the media - warned that an area in England which equates to an area almost three-and-a-half times the size of Wales was at risk from the reforms.

Another lyrical and eloquent, albeit brief, speech came from Sir Andrew Motion himself as he was formally unveiled as the next president of the Campaign of Protect Rural England. Although he said he was saving his powder for his speech at the AGM in June, the former poet laureate made clear his concerns about Government reforms to planning rules. ‘'When Government planning reform could place two thirds of rural England at the mercy of a presumption in favour of development, this is a critical moment for the countryside and for anyone who wants a say over what happens to their community and their surroundings’.

Shaun Spiers, the CPRE’s chief executive, added: ‘The countryside he is talking about is the local countryside on people’s doorstep which is most threatened by the National Planning Policy Framework’.

Appointing Sir Andrew is an inspired move and should leave Greg Clark in no doubt who the real enemy of the beauties of the countryside and heritage are in this now long running national debate. Since Greg is anything but a cultural or aesthetic philistine himself, I hope he will take on board the following words of Motion who said that much of his work (like that of Ted Hughes) was drawn from a ‘passion’ for the English countryside, the inspiration he draws from its beauty and tranquillity, and how the countryside is a national asset that should be accessible to everyone.

‘To be proposed for this role is a mixture of joy, honour and a little trepidation. But if CPRE members will have me, then I am fully prepared to stand up for the countryside alongside them’.

Clark looks like a ‘Birthday Letters’ sort of guy; the sort of Cambridge man who may have even seen the manuscript of the Four Quartets that is kept in the Pepys Library at Magdalene, Cambridge. Should the re-draft be tempered to suit the sharp Top Man suits of the developers like Taylor Wimpey who paid for the drinks and the canapés at the platform they hosted for you at the Tory conference, rather than those voters (like the over four million CPRE and National Trust members) who believe the countryside and our heritage is what makes Britain GREAT, then you may just end up being immortalized in verse as The Man Who Ruined England.

Mr Clark is expected to announce his revised changes to the planning rules next month.

Wanted: Your Signature to Save the Countryside

Monday, 20th February 2012 (view of the Shropshire Hills from Upton Cressett) 

THE REMOTE HAMLET of Upton Cressett, near Bridgnorth in Shropshire, where I live, was snowed in over the weekend. On Saturday morning, which was bright, clear and very cold - but the winter air quite still - I went for a walk with my dog, tramping through the snowy old deserted medieval village that lies below my house.

I headed off in the direction of Wenlock Edge across the ancient English pastoral landscape that so inspired AE Housman and Vaughn Williams. Exactly 1.2km from where I set out, in the middle of a field, right next to the Jack Mytton Way, Shropshire's most famous walking and bridle-path, I walked up to a giant 40 metre high wind monitoring mast that has recently been erected on a local farmer's land by Sharenergy, the precursor to a planning application for two Goliath like wind turbines.

If approved, these two modern EU subsidised industrial structures will destroy the intimate valley-like setting of the historic landscape and will earn the farmer in the region of £40,000 a year for the pair - regardless of angry local community opposition and irrelevant of whether they will actually heat any houses in the winter cold.

Just the week before - another snowy but windless day - I checked with the National Grid's 'UK Carbon Intensity' chart, which calculates how the country's energy needs are being met from various energy sources. At around 9.30am, the figure was gas: 39.6%, coal: 42.1%, nuclear: 15% and wind: 0.7%. Yes, well less than 1%, with hydro providing even more energy.
  
 

IT IS SUCH figures that so worry an increasing number of politicians, not the least since the departure of Chris Huhne, who, as Energy Secretary, was an evangelist for wind energy describing turbines as 'beautiful' and calling for the UK to have over 32,000 by 2020.

The trouble is first, they don't work efficiently; second, we can’t afford them; and third, they will destroy the precious countryside and historic setting of some of our most important buildings and heritage sites that David Cameron has been busy championing (in New York and Davos) as part of his new £39 million GREAT Britain Campaign that puts heritage at the very forefront of reasons for people to visit, live, work and invest in Britain today.

Spear's Save Britain's Historic Landscape Campaign - and 'Heritage and the NPPF' submission to planning minister Greg Clark - has exposed the inherent contradictions of the GREAT Britain Campaign alongside its anti-localism, anti-countryside, anti-heritage policy on wind turbines. On the one hand, the government is claiming to protect heritage, culture and tourism, while also championing a new planning system and pro-wind localism agenda that trumps all other environmental considerations - including heritage (as seen by the fiasco over the Naseby battlefield site which is now to become a 'wind turbine landscape').

The poison in the system - as we have been arguing for months now - is the government policy on wind turbines where the government is offering no clarity at all. Of course this idea is not only impractical but also dangerous as it would ruin the English countryside and send hundreds of thousands into fuel poverty because of the 'renewable obligation' 15% hikes to consumer energy bills - in order to pay for the massively subsidised renewable energy that doesn't come even close to producing anything like the energy supply this country needs.

So critical has the situation become that Chris Heaton-Harris MP has written to David Cameron personally citing the support of over a hundred Tory MPs who have become increasingly concerned over the government's seemingly blind enthusiasm for wind energy. 
  
 

WE ARE INVITING Spear's readers to add their names to another letter that is being sent to 10 Downing Street to express the concern that the wider business community (including financial services) have in regards to the government's pursuit of unreachable wind energy targets that this country cannot afford. Apart from anything else, as we have argued before, there is nothing especially 'green' about wind energy - because of the way they are constructed, shipped, hauled and besides wind turbines need coal or gas back-up to keep the parts moving when there is no wind, especially when it is freezing.

Chris Heaton-Harris's cross-party parliamentary group has called on these subsidies to be drastically cut back as reliance on an artificially subsidised energy source of 0.7% contribution to the grid will never - not even by 2020 - come close to hitting any of the energy targets needed to keep the country supplied with power.

Below is a copy of the letter that the Chris Heaton-Harris's parliamentary group of over 100 Tory MPs sent to David Cameron:

To: The Prime Minister 10 Downing Street LONDON, SW1A 2AA

As Members of Parliament from across the political spectrum, we have grown more and more concerned about the Government’s policy of support for on-shore wind energy production. In these financially straightened times, we think it is unwise to make consumers pay, through taxpayer subsidy, for inefficient and intermittent energy production that typifies on-shore wind turbines.

In the on-going review of subsidy for renewable energy subsidies, we ask the Government to dramatically cut the subsidy for on-shore wind and spread the savings made between other types of reliable renewable energy production and energy efficiency measures. We also are worried that the new National Planning Policy Framework, in its current form, diminishes the chances of local people defeating unwanted on-shore wind farm proposals through the planning system.

Thus we attach some subtle amendments to the existing wording that we believe will help re-balance the system. Finally, recent planning appeals have approved wind farm developments with the inspectors citing renewable energy targets as being more important than planning considerations. Taken to its logical conclusion, this means that it is impossible to defeat applications through the planning system.

We would urge you to ensure that planning inspectors know that the views of local people and long established planning requirements should always be taken into account. Yours sincerely etc   
 

SPEAR'S HAS BEEN asked to help collect some supporting signatures and names from the business and financial community who feel the same way. If you can lend support to our Save Britain's Historic Landscape Campaign, and are happy to sign the letter that is being shortly sent to 10 Downing Street representing the concerns of the business and financial community, please e-mail me directly: william.cash@spearswms.com. I will see that your name is added to our letter to the prime minister and also to Greg Clark, the planning minister responsible for the revised draft of the NPPF concerning which Spears was invited to submit its ‘Heritage and the NPPF' report a few weeks ago.

One of the most important points in Heaton-Harris's letter to Cameron is the group's calling for urgent revisions in the NPPF to give local communities - remember the Localism Bill? - a fairer chance of stopping planning applications that people don't want or are 'inappropriately' positioned such as, for example the historic market town of Bridgnorth whose new 'Town Plan' talks of 'maintaining Bridgnorth's heritage' as being a priority. The £12.1 billion income received from 'heritage tourism' is critical for the growth of the economy.

Yet, the truth is that a anti-Localism new planning system has been created that is all but impossible to defeat. As the author of the heritage paper which Spear's submitted to Greg Clark, the planning minister responsible for the NPPF re-draft, I see clearly that ever since the draft NPPF was published in July, the Planning Inspectorate (just a single government inspector) have been put under pressure from Whitehall to railroad through planning appeal cases regardless of 'local' community opposition, Local Council opposition, or any statutory body opposition - such as English Heritage.

Anybody closely studying the government renewable policies will realise that the Coalition seems determined to create an almost Soviet-style planning system in the UK where dissent is all but impossible when it comes to the EU march of turbines. In July 2011, in a little read document put out by DECC called the 'UK Renewables Road Map' makes it clear that Localism is irrelevant to the government's 'direction of traffic’.

The chilling document makes clear that the 54% approval rate for onshore wind projects in England needs to be dramatically increased, regardless of local opposition 'Developers remain concerned about the time taken to decide applications... This has led to a situation where many developments are approved on appeal - over 50% of UK sub-50MW onshore wind projects rejected by local planning committees are eventually approved through this route.’ The document adds: 'The Government will shortly consult on a new National Planning Policy Framework for England... The framework will include a new presumption in favour of sustainable development.’

It is this 'new presumption' that - quite rightly - so worries the likes of Chris Heaton Harris. Indeed, the only trouble with the GREAT Britain Campaign is what the posters and TV ads splashing images of Britain's famous heritage sites - including Stonehenge and dreaming spires of Oxford - are not telling the world is that Britain’s unique heritage and countryside is currently under serious threat from its own planning system with an increasing number of historic sites now at peril because of government inspectors overturning local council decisions and interpreting the new draft National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) – and its ‘presumption in favour of development’ – as being the new planning law.

Even more disturbing is the extent to which our 'heritage assets' are now being bought off to large foreign owned conglomerates whose CEOs may enjoy showing up for tea with David Cameron at Schneider's in Davos but who really care very little indeed for what make Britain 'GREAT' - other than the UK's renewable energy targets making for a unique opportunity to make loads of money for themselves at our historic landscape's expense.
  
 

IF GREG CLARK does not specifically tighten protection for the approx just 1300 ‘heritage tourism’ attractions and buildings that are open to the public (and contribute £7.4 billion a year) Britain is at risk of becoming an embarrassing heritage graveyard. Back in October, we highlighted such fears with the example of how a government inspector had interpreted the new NPPF in exactly this way to allow development close to Grade 1 Great Coxwell Barn in Oxfordshire, one of the most important 14th century buildings in the country. Following that article, I met with Greg Clark who assured me that heritage protection would not being diluted in the NPPF.

Yet in December, the situation became worse with a flood of super-sized wind farms being approved that leave no doubt about the government’s true intentions when it comes to the EU march of the turbines – utterly regardless of how ‘exceptional’ the heritage. On December 19th Paul Griffiths upheld an appeal by German energy giant E.On which will desecrate the famous Northants battle site of Naseby - the second most important battle in English History which led the way to the birth of our Parliamentary ‘democracy’.

This is ironic as the latest decisions are single inspectors upholding energy company appeals against local democracy. At Naseby, E.ON are being allowed to build their turbines on land owned by the charitable trust of Kelmarsh Hall, former home of the interior decorator and socialite Nancy Lancaster. This was followed on 21 December by the Watford Lodge Decision. This allows a giant wind farm to ruin the historic setting of Ashby St Ledgers Manor, again in Northants, the home of Sir Robert Catesby where the Gunpowder Plot was schemed in 1506. The ancient Grade 2 * manor with was remodelled by Sir Edward Lutyens, with a garden by Getrude Jekyll, one of the 20th century's most celebrated landscape designers.

The UK planning system now increasingly resembles an unwinnable game of Top Trumps with a single Inspector being able to over-ride any heritage or local community objection considerations, however ‘significant’ or iconic, by invoking Planning Policy 22 (PPS22) which states that 'renewable energy’ should be ‘accommodated through England' to match the binding EU targets that the UK has signed up for, calling for up to 32,000 turbines by 2020.
  
 

WHAT IS SO worrying about the Kelmarsh and Watford Lodge decisions is the extent to which the inspectors are now freely admitting the extent of the harm their anti-Localism decisions will have on heritage. Grade 1 Kelmarsh Hall was built in 1727 by the architect James Gibbs and Pevsner describes the building as 'a perfect…done in an impeccable taste'. Inspector Griffiths admits that the house is of ‘the highest order of significance' and that the wind turbines will be 'an obvious presence’. Yet he states the ‘public benefit’ of renewables outweighs all heritage aspects.

There is an additionally disturbing point here about the Kelmarsh decision. You might have thought that the ten grandees who sit on the Kelmarsh Trust might be the sort of people that the nation might rely on to safeguard such iconic national heritage. The sort of people who would want to ‘preserve’ the historic setting of Kelmarsh Hall – not to mention that of the decisive battle of the Civil War.

 Not the least as the ‘aims and objectives’ of the Kelmarsh Trust are to ‘preserve, for the benefit of the nation, buildings and chattels of national, historic or architectural importance, particularly the buildings and contents of Kelmarsh Hall’. If you look up the 2010 accounts, further clarity is given on this point with regards to the protection of the ‘adjoining land which is also essential for the protection of the character and amenities of Kelmarsh Hall’.

The trustees, chaired by Peter Scott, includes such heritage luminaries as Gerald Cadogan, the archaeologist Gerald Cadogan, formerly of the British School at Athens; and Lady Nutting OBE, Chairman of the Georgian Group who has also served on the National Trust Council as well as being a Trustee of the National Heritage Memorial Fund.

Desecrating the Naseby battlefield site and inviting a German energy company to spoil the historic setting of the Hall seems an odd way to uphold its heritage principles. But if you look closely at the end of the Kelmarsh Decision you will notice that the invitation to E.ON comes with a price tag of £1.5 million in revenue alone. The Decision letter also refers to a £200,000 advance payment payable to the Trust, (a deal struck in October), before the turbines even go up.

Such selling off our heritage is now the price we are paying for blindly signing up to EU carbon targets as well as – long ago selling off our country’s airports, banks and energy companies to foreign conglomerates who do not care about heritage, only commercial self-interest.

The case for reform of the current NPPF planning draft in relation to heritage protection is both urgent and overwhelming. There is a strong case for specially designated protection in the NPPF to safeguard the 'setting' of heritage tourism assets of significance, in particular those that directly contribute to economic growth by being open to the public.
  
 

FROM MY MEETING with Greg Clark, I have no doubt that he does want to create a balanced and sustainable planning system, and that he does not want planning development appeals and protests and legal battles up and down the country which will end up costing votes.

But unless he gets his advisors to maintain the safeguards to heritage, and - as Chris Heaton-Harris has advocated in his letter to Cameron - restores the spirit of Localism to the NPPF (its sister document), the postcards of this country that visitors will be sending around the world will soon be not of dreaming spires but rather an English landscape spoiled by short-term thinking and expensive legal battles up and down the country as the Tory rebellion turns to a rural revolution that will cost the Tories dearly at the polls.

Mutiny in the Shires

Monday, 23rd January 2012

There was an interesting item published last week in the Daventry Express relating to a local Conservative Councillor called Tony Scott who has resigned from the Conservative party to show the Government the Council's 'complete disdain at its blind determination to blight our countryside with expensive and useless machines'.

He has urged fellow councillors across the country and his own colleagues to do the same. The above photograph is the entrance gates to Morville Hall, near Bridgnorth, Shropshire, whose approach could be greatly harmed if a planning application for two giant wind turbines less than two miles away is allowed. You might have thought that the rural parish council of this idyllic English village would be toxic to the idea of having their rolling parkland and surrounding countryside desecrated by a wind turbine landscape... but then you probably dont know how parish councils work; and why the whole system of parish council elections and voting urgently needs reform in the aftermath of the Localism Bill, which went through Parliament in November. 

First, the local farmer, Clive Millington, who will benefit financially from the wind turbine industrialization of the local landscape is a parish councillor. As is his buddy Derek Pugh, who also would like to put his nose in the EU trough. The local parish council gave permission for the precursor wind mast with a secret ballot that was both undemocratic (local Council votes are not, and should not be, secret ballot as the councillors are democratically accountable and representative of the local community) and potentially legally unconstitutional.

I will be writing more about the iniquities of local parish councils in a later blog but my point here is that the 'democratic deficit' crisis affecting the entire local government system in the Uk does not begin at County Council level, it begins with local parish councils, with Morville Parish Council - my council - being a blatant example of how the system has been allowed to rot, and has gone so tragically wrong, with local landowners and a few token business figures using and exploiting the parish council for their own agenda and ends through a form of cronyism and mutual back-scratching that you might expect in the Congo but not sleepy Morville.

Thankfully, a rebellion is underway in the Shires against the culture of local cronyism, with developers and landowners effectively bulldozing public and local opinion and jumping onto the EU subsidy money wagon. The public and local communities are not going to stand for it much longer.

Councillor Tony Scott in Daventry, for example, has specifically said that he will now sit as an 'independent' councillor because of the 'unacceptable' government policy of simply appointing Planning Inspectors to rail-road through wind farms across Northants (and the rest of the country) regardless of local opinion, the claims of Localism, or the claims of heritage, however historically or architecturally significant.

This is the first outbreak of a new wave of very English local revolutions - call it the English Spring come to the May council elections - and will only get worse in the wake of last week's HS2 decision to slice through miles of beautiful scenic Chilterns countryside (again in the Tory voting heartland). The reaction of so many Conservative voting residents, Councillors and MPs has been to warn the government that if it continues its anti-countryside, anti-Localism, anti-local democracy, anti-Conservative and pro-big developer political posturing, it will have to deal with mass defections and deeply harmful amputation of some of its most loyal and natural supporters when it comes to voting.

The wind turbine planning plague scandal which has allowed EU driven targets to take the critical issue of positioning of wind turbines outside the planning system, along with the HS2 project that is really to do with Keynesian stimulus, and just throwing money at creating jobs and infrastructure - rather than being a rail-link that we can either afford or really need - is going to seriously impact the Conservative vote in areas that the Tories cannot afford to lose seats.

Moreover, UKIP have been swift to position themselves as being against HS2 and against the insensitive rural proliferation of wind turbines - as the only slavish solution to our energy problems - with the result that it is highly likely that (just as in the last election) many rural Tories will vote UKIP not because they expect their candidates to win parliamentary seats but because it is a protest vote against the Tory led government's anti-Localism and obsession with meeting EU targets.

It should be remembered that in the last election - which Cameron probably would have won had he set out a clearer and more robust Conservative policy agenda, especially on Britain's relationship with the EU - it is estimated that the Tories lost 23 seats (including MPs like David Heathcote Amory) because of protest voting with Tory votes being lost to UKIP candidates. Instead of pussyfooting about trying to play factional suck-up politics cynically calculated to win the unfaithful middle ground (trying to be popular by pleasing factions and cliques is a peculiarly Etonian quality) Cameron should have set up a stall (just as Thatcher did to win the 1979 election) that spelled out why a strongly led Conservative government was the best answer to the country's economic woes. Instead we have the likes of Clegg and Huhne holding Cameron to ransom over EU targets, human rights law, EU employment law - all of which are suffocating growth and seriously alienating Tory voters.

It is over 25 years since I last used the following quote by the historian Lord Acton in an Oxbridge history exam paper, namely, 'What a Government cannot do, by all its signalling and law-making, is what a society is radically indisposed to it doing.’ But this is why there are now an increasing number of local revolts across the country, not the least in Wales, where Welsh Assembly politicians and councillors who are pro-wind are in danger of being simply voted out by an electorate that, like Tony Scott, has simply decided that they have had enough.

One of the biggest factors that would currently lose the Tories a deeply worrying amount of votes is its indifference to the countryside and heritage, despite its insistence that these will both be protected by the re-drafted NPPF. Big Government rail-roading through of HS2 has created the absurd situation that those Tory voters who actually live in the Chilterns near the controversial £33 billion-plus high-speed line (or anywhere in the Home Counties) cannot actually benefit from using HS2 themselves as it is only a non-stop service from Birmingham to London.

The blind pursuit of wind farms, regardless of positioning, will not only desecrate the English countryside and destroy parts of our unique heritage but also make the middle classes unable to heat their homes due to 'renewable obligation' levies and extra tariffs. The now notorious 'Kelmarsh decision" of 19 December by inspector Paul Griffiths - ruining the historic setting of the famous Battle of Naseby site as well as Grade 1 Kelmarsh Hall, where socialite Nancy Lancaster had her social salon - has been the final nail in the coffin of any pretence that there id any way of holding back the EU march of the turbines which so undermine the local planning process, so - quite rightly - elected councillors (and we are talking about elected councillors in the Tory heartlands) are now realising that the only way that the government is going to take any notice is by political action, ie getting people to vote for independent candidates at council elections who are opposed to the usurping of the planning system by unelected inspectors like Griffiths.

As it is increasingly clear from the number of appeal decisions now being made by inspectors - with the all important Kimbolton Castle wind farm decision expected today (23 January) - the planning system is not a level playing field and is rigged to prevent Localism working in practise because of the 'Top Trump' override of EU carbon emission targets. Thus the only way for natural Conservative voters to express their anger with the Tory-led Coalition government (held in a stranglehold by Chris Huhne) is by voting against the government at both local elections and - unless the govt changes its policy on making 'wind' the winning renewable solution to our energy problems (which it clearly isn't, not the least as it is inefficient and too expensive) - probably the next election.

The local rural revolts - fuelled by e-petitions on the subjects of wind, renewables, and HS2 that are blindly ignored by the Coalition - will soon spread from local skirmishes to political rebellion and then onto civil war within the Tory party. Cllr Scott is a brave man and I suspect he will be just the first of many who stand up and say 'enough is enough': 'While I continue to support the current administration I want it to be known that I do not support a number of central Government policies.’

Daventry District has become one of the country's leading wind farm plague hotspots. There are currently have well over 100 wind turbine applications surrounding the village of Crick alone (rising by over 50 in six months), including the Grade 2* 15th century brick manor of Winwick which was formerly owned by the author Sir Thomas Malory. The fate of Winwick village will be decided at a public enquiry in April by just a single inspector despite 100% of the village (almost all Tory) voting against the turbine proposals. The inspector is the same man who ruled on 21 December in favour of allowing the Watford Lodge wind farm to go ahead - after being rejected by the council - which he admitted will harm the historic Grade 2* site of Ashby St Ledgers Manor, home of Viscount Wimborne, where the Gunpowder Plot was schemed in 1605.

‘Following the recent undemocratic decision of the planning inspector to overturn the council planning committee’s resolution and approve the application to build two wind farms at Watford and Kelmarsh, in line with Government policy, was a step too far. As a result I have resigned from the Conservative party and will continue to represent my constituents as an independent councillor,' said Scott in his statement.

Chris Millar, leader of the council’s Conservative group, said: 'I’m very sorry that he’s left the party due to national policies, but he will still support our local policies.’

But in a recent letter to the Daily Telegraph complaining at the way Paul Griffiths had simply overruled his Council's decision to refuse planning permission for the wind farm at Kelmarsh and Naseby, Millar went further in supporting his Tory colleague's decision to resign asking: ‘Is the Government’s localism agenda dead in the water already?'

‘If the Planning Inspectorate are going to use the national renewable energy targets as the main reason for agreeing schemes no matter how inappropriate, inefficient and regardless of their impact on the area they are situated within, then is there any point in a local democratic planning process?’ Millar added.

As things stand, the answer is increasingly worrying: ‘Not while wind farms are regarded as being outside the planning system.’ They urgently need to be brought back within the system in the re-drafted NPPF so that the system can become fair and local democracy and the wishes of local people can be respected. After all isn’t that the whole point of localism?

Although Chris Heaton-Harris, Daventry’s Conservative MP who has been an outspoken critic of Govt wind farm policy, did not publicly support the decision of Mr Scott to resign as a Tory, I suspect that privately he admires the courage of a local politician who will stand up and be counted where it matters - in the voting booth.

He is organising a meeting of cross-party MPs on Tuesday who will be gathering together in the Commons to voice their commonly held concerns - across all parties - that an 'anti-democratic' blind obsession with wind farms is not the answer to Britain's energy problems. The movement has been getting support and coverage from a range of newspapers and commentators as this new EU political trump game chews badly with all political persuasions.

As a commentator for Daventry Express reminded its readers, 'Governing parties who ignore the groundswell of opinion amongst their natural support base soon find themselves in opposition rather than in government.’

And with local council elections coming up, and HS2 bulldozers standing on the horizon of the Chilterns, these rural revolts are likely to hurt the Tories sooner than they think.

It's a Battlefield

Sunday, January 8th

This week Spear’s is submitting its ‘Heritage and the NPPF’ briefing report for Greg Clark’s team of advisors at the Department of Communities and Local Government in Victoria. The results – based on research during our Save Britain’s Historic Landscape campaign, launched back in August before the Telegraph launched their own Hands Off Our Land Campaign (brilliant as it is) – makes for some chilling reading.

The sort that (we hope) will have Greg and his advisory team heading straight to the Bag O’ Nails pub in Victoria right next to the DCLG offices for a drink after reading. Our findings certainly sit uneasily next to the DCLG spokesperson who told the Telegraph on 4 January that it had ‘repeatedly made clear’ that it was ‘committed to safeguarding the natural and historic environment’.

He added: ‘The draft framework retains the protections already in place and puts power back into the hands of local people, ensuring they are in charge of deciding the areas they wish to see developed and those to be protected. Listing for buildings and scheduling for ancient monuments will continue. It also makes clear that a local council could not allow development causing significant harm or loss to an important heritage asset apart from in wholly exceptional circumstances with stringent tests needed to justify any such proposal.’

A few days after these claims, the Sunday Telegraph ran a disturbing feature on the six wind turbines that have now been permitted by a Government Planning Inspector which will desecrate the famous Northants (1645) battle site of Naseby - the second most important battle in English History (after Hastings in 1066) and the battle that led the way to the birth of our soi disant Parliamentary democracy.

Upton Cressett and the Cressett family - both Edward Cressett, who was killed in the Battle of Bridgnorth in 1646 and his son Sir Francis Cressett - played at important part in the Civil War, with Sir Francis Cressett - who portrait hangs in our Great Hall dining room - being Treasurer to Charles I (meaning he was the George Osborne of the mid 17th century) as well as his personal steward. He would almost certainly have been with the King at Naseby. When Charles I was later incarcerated in Carisbrooke Castle in 1648, the king used Francis Cressett, along with a secret cipher code to communicate with his allies. This code was known by very few loyal Courtiers close to the king, with Francis being mentioned several times as the anonymous character known as 'A' in the secret missives.

Prince Rupert stayed in the Upton Cressett Gatehouse during the Civil War - escorted by a 'troop of royal horse'. It had been built in 1580 and was decorated a la mode with leather and gilt wall coverings. As the Commander of the royalist troops at Naseby and also the nephew of the king, he would have closely known Francis Cressett and it is likely that the famous 'King's Chair' that used to exist at Upton Cressett (sadly now lost) was the chair that Charles I used when he visited Upton Cressett to see his Steward and Treasurer.

I cannot believe that the government can allow the Naseby site to be ruined because of EU carbon targets, not the least as Cameron has just launched a 39£ Britain is Great global marketing campaign that champions our unique heritage. This decision – known as the ‘Kelmarsh Decision’ as it is on land owned by the trustees of the 3,000 acre estate of Grade 1 Kelmarsh Hall - was on 19 December. The Telegraph’s leader of 21 December called for Greg Clark, the planning minister responsible for re-drafting the National Planning Policy Framework, to ‘produce another draft that is more precise and better defined’.

As Spear’s has argued, a crucial area of the new draft NPPF that requires specific and urgent clarity is the positioning of wind farms close to heritage sites of national significance. Currently industrial wind farms are not addressed specifically in either the draft NPPF or the Localism Bill, the latter claimed as the government’s flagship vehicle for local democracy in the planning process.

Yet, despite government assurances that ‘heritage protection’ is not being watered down by the NPPF, the clear evidence of the Kelmarsh Decision – followed on 21 December by the Watford Lodge Decision which settled the fate of the famous ‘command centre’ Gatehouse, owned by Sir Robert Catesby where the Gunpowder Plot was schemed in 1605 – by planning inspectors demonstrates that the government’s blind goal of achieving ‘renewable energy targets’ is effectively nullifying both the very idea of ‘localism’.

It is also completely undermining David Cameron’s claim that ‘heritage’ is a crucial plank of his ‘Britain is Great’ campaign and must be safeguarded in the planning process. Heritage needs protecting as much as our priceless countryside, and is a hugely significant reason why so many people visit the UK ever year. One in three people say heritage tourism is the reason they come to the UK and over 80 per cent of all domestic visitors pay a visit to a heritage attraction while on a mini-break - the highest ranked of all leisure activities in the UK.

With Chris Huhne now promising up to 32,000 wind turbines, the need for some form of tightened heritage protection - and clarity as to where wind farms can be sited - in the revised NPPF is ever more urgent. Northamptonshire is now a wind farm hotspot with over 100 pending applications around the small village of Crick alone. The Watford Lodge site, to be built by the German owned Volkswind energy company, is within musket ball distance of the famous Ashby St Ledgers Manor, owned by Viscount Wimborne, where the Gunpowder plot took place in the Gatehouse.

Despite the government inspector Alan Novitzky admitting in his decision letter of 21 December that the Manor, gardens and parkland ‘provide a wealth of historic, architectural and landscape interest’, he concluded that ‘the public benefit of the proposals would outweigh the harm to the settings of the heritage assets’. In other words, EU driven renewable targets rule, to the detriment of irreplaceable heritage and landscape.

The Kelmarsh Decision is the same story. ‘The battlefield is of great significance as a heritage asset,’ admits Mr Griffiths in his decision letter, after inspecting the site on 10 October, adding clearly that the wind turbines would have a ‘distinct visible presence’, and would act as a modern ‘distraction’ from the open fields of the site, especially from such places as Rupert’s Viewpoint, King Charles’ Oak Viewpoint, the ROC Look-Out Post, Sulby Hedges and the Mill Hill Viewpoint (where the Living History Centre is being built).

The truth is that the cause of heritage is being marginalized at Naseby in the cause of commercial self-interest, as is invariably the case when the mouthwatering subsidies from renewables are involved. English Heritage’s strong objection to spoiling the setting of their own festival that celebrates the very best of English history could sway the inspector away from deciding that the call of renewables is more important cause than that of heritage.

The same verdict was reached by Inspector Paul Griffiths in his appraisal of Lamport Hall, also close to the wind turbines, another Grade 1 historic property with historic parklands and its Grade 1 Church of All Saints. ‘The Hall and Church are of very high quality architecturally,’ states Griffiths, ‘and have great historic and artistic interest.’ This group of heritage assets are of ‘the highest order of significance’.

Yet, after conducting what he refers to as a ‘balancing exercise’, the inspector – overruling the local council - decided that Chris Huhne’s renewable targets are more important, at the expense of any semblance of localism. Around the country, the story is the same, with our heritage being increasingly considered irrelevant by developers and local planning inspectors. In Shropshire, for example, another growing wind farm hotspot, there is a wind farm proposal less than a mile from my place, Upton Cressett Hall, the medieval manor where King Edward V (one of the Princes in the Tower) stayed on his way from Ludlow to the Tower in 1483, which is one of the county’s leading heritage attractions and the winner of the 2011 Hudsons Heritage Award for top UK ‘Hidden Gem’ heritage attraction.

Yet neither Shropshire Council’s planning department, nor Sharenergy - the developer, working with Natural Power, based in Wales - even bothered to mention the historic property in their planning documents, a clear breach of the statutory requirement to consult with English Heritage. The matter has been taken up with a formal letter to Shropshire Council asking for a full explanation as to why they did not consult with English Heritage, not even bother to refer to the famous Jack Mytton Way - the county’s flagship tourist and bridlepath trail - which is threatened by the turbines.

As Spear’s has argued before, there is a strong case for specially designated protection in the NPPF to safeguard the setting of heritage tourism assets of significance, in particular those that directly contribute to sustainable economic growth by being open to the public. The total number of mainstream heritage tourism properties in the UK open to the public amounts to approx just 1,100 properties in total (National Trust around 350, English Heritage around 400 and the privately owned Historic Houses Association core of around 350).

These 1,100 heritage properties play a critical role in contributing £12.1 billion to the UK economy, with £7.3 billion coming directly from visits to heritage attractions and museums. There are approx 400,000 listed buildings on the National Heritage List. These 1,100 properties - across the country - amount to just 0.25 per cent of all listed buildings. Yet these important heritage assets play a critical role in the tourist economy and sustainable economic growth.

There is a very strong case - as proposed by the National Trust for a return to a ‘presumption in favour of conservation’ for these important heritage assets of national importance that contribute so much to our national identity and economy. As Councillor Chris Millar, leader of Conservative led Daventry Council, said to me after hearing of the depressing Inspectorate Decision over Kelmarsh and Naseby, ‘Is the Government’s localism agenda dead in the water already?’

‘If the Planning Inspectorate are going to use the national renewable energy targets as the main reason for agreeing schemes no matter how inappropriate, inefficient and regardless of their impact on the area they are situated within, then is there any point in a local democratic planning process?’ he added. As things stand, the answer is increasingly worrying: ‘Not while wind farms are regarded as being outside the planning system.’ They urgently need to be brought back within the system so that the system can become fair and local democracy and the wishes of local people can be respected. After all isn’t that the whole point of localism?

When Greg Clark and his team meet over the next few weeks in their offices at the Department of Communities and Local Government in Victoria, or enjoy a sandwich over lunch at the Bag O’ Nails pub next door, they need to consider the implications of creating a planning system that is no longer a level playing field.

With the Planning Inspector always holding the ace card of EU driven ‘renewable targets’ which can trump any heritage consideration, it is clear that the planning system is undermining the very principles of creating a fairer and more simply planning system that the new NPPF was set up to produce.

And the true Winner of the Hudson's Heritage Awards is...

December 4th

For the last few months, I've been getting increasingly nervous about the judging outcome of the 2011 Hudsons Heritage Awards with Upton Cressett Hall being nominated for three categories in the Oscars of the UK heritage world. They were finally held at an awards lunch on December 1st at the Grosvenor Square Hotel with the awards being presented by chairman of the judges, Norman Hudson OBE. The other judges were Lady Lucinda Lambton and Jeremy Musson, former architectural editor of Country Life. The awards are to recognise 'The Nation's Finest Heritage'.

The awards were on a Thursday at lunch time. I was very nearly late as I thought the lunch would probably start at around 1pm. It was only when I drove out of my gates around 10am and anxiously recalled that the show up time for our very own Spear's Book Awards - this year a seated awards luncheon at the Corinthia Hotel off Whitehall - was actually noon, that I reached for my mobile and called the Grosvenor Square Hotel. I was efficiently informed by an events person that the Hudsons awards did, indeed, start at 12pm.

Thankfully, I was still driving the new super-charged Jaguar XKR - top speed over 150mph - that I had been loaned by Jaguar for a month. It was due back on December 2nd and so this was my last long-distance drive. My record-breaking journey - setting a new best time from Upton Cressett to Berkeley Square in under two hours, and smashing the old record by some margin - will be covered in another piece but let's just say the Jag's 5.2 stallion like engine warmed to the call of heritage and not being late for lunch. I was parked in Grosvenor Square shortly before noon.

A hint that it might be a good idea to show up on time had come just the weekend before when I got a call on Friday afternoon - just a week before the awards - from Norman Hudson's office saying they were making the final decisions and could he come for a 'quick visit' on Monday morning. So the weekend was spent dusting the furniture, repainting the front door, ordering in enough flowers for a wedding and polishing the 16th century oak staircases - preparing for an inspection from the Godfather of the UK heritage business. For the first time all year, I ordered all the heating to be turned on with the house pipes groaning into life as the oil boiler was fired up for the first time in about eight months. All fires were laid - with vast quantities of logs ferried over in a wheelbarrow to the Gatehouse and Hall by the gardener Nathan - and ready to burn like it was Christmas at Balmoral. 

Things went well until my gardener found an old tin of some old fashioned Farrow & Ball oil paint to paint the front door that takes two days to dry and so was still wet as Norman Hudson parked his BMW on the gravel by the gatehouse. I was anxious that Norman would try to push open the front door and would end up covered in gloss paint so I guarded the front door like a suited Cerberus waiting for him.

Just as Norman walked towards me along the topiary gravel path and I gently kicked open the door, disaster struck as a gravel stone got caught under the door. It would not move or open. Try as I might, I couldn't get the door to open without without a heavy shoulder shove which would have resulted in myself being covered in paint. In the split second I had to think, I decided to walk calmly towards him and said: 'I think we'll start with a tour of the Gatehouse'.

And duly sent the Godfather of Britain's heritage off in that direction as the Gatehouse, separately, was up for Best Accommodation with previous guests including Prince Rupert of the Rhine, Margaret Thatcher and Elizabeth Hurley. I then ran like Usain Bolt back around the entire house, through the kitchen door and then back through the Great Hall dining room and and salon back to the front door where I managed to yank it open from the inside whose door had not been painted.

In fact, the entire 48 hours prior to Norman's visit was straight out of the famous episode of Fawlty Towers when everything goes horribly wrong before a visit from the hotel inspector. But apart from the wet paint on the front door, and the fact that I had forgotten to remove a very amateurishly made, bedraggled and weather beaten (writing unreadbale) home-made sign on the front railings saying 'No Wind Farms Here', everything went pretty smoothly on judgement day. It helped that Norman, it turned out, had been to Upton Cressett before - back in the 1960s - when the manor house and gatehouse were near derelict, unoccupied and overgrown, before my parents began renovation in the early 1970s. 

When I showed Norman the restored 1580 Gatehouse - now also the home of the Upton Cressett writers' foundation - he could hardly believe his eyes. 'I remember poking my head up the oak staircase in the sixties when the gatehouse had trees growing in the place. The staircase was just full of old twigs and it was like a romantic ruin - just empty and anybody could just take a look. I suppose I must have been trespassing but nobody was living there - other than some pigs!'. 

That was well over 40 years ago.  Tempus fugit...

The 2011 Hudsons Heritage Awards lunch were held, oddly enough, in the seventies-style function 'Mayfair Room suite in the basement of the Grosvenor Square Hotel - not a glamorous venue, at least by any of the standards of the statelys up for awards.  In a slightly surreal way, it was often difficult to tell from the motley collection of nominees present - all of whom were either winners or 'Highly Commended' - whether they were the actual owners of such magnificent stately piles as Chatsworth, Port Eliot (which won for Best Event) or Burghley (winner of two awards), or some estate manager or secretary, or housekeeper. 

As the awards were read out, it became increasingly evident that the majority who collected their framed award certificate - despite most being dressed as if going for a relaxed day's racing at Plumpton - were the actual owners. Any Americans looking on would have thought it incredulous that the national Oscar-like awards for the most prestigious and stately heritage venues in the entire country could be handed out in a windowless basement suite under the bowels of Grosvenor Square but the whole ceremony was a typically eccentric English affair.

Amusing speeches and comments flowed from the likes of Lucinda Lambton and also Loyd Grossman, chairman of the Heritage Alliance, the lobbying body of over 90 heritage organisations. For all the lack of glamour of the venue, the judging was were taken exceptionally seriously and nobody doubted the integrity and informed expertise of the judges. I only trust that next year's event will be held in a more architecturally splendid location - fitting for national awards which recognise 'The Nation's Finest Heritage Venues'.

First up was Best Renovation - which we were nominated for. I thought we had a fair chance in that category after a three year renovation that had cost me a divorce, a fortune and had nearly sent me mad, but not so much as an honourable mention. I was secretly relieved as it was not the award I wanted to win. Best Renovation may have been personally satisfying but winning what is effectively a best DIY award would never translate into commercial - tickets sold at the door - success.

Next category we were up for was Best Accommodation. I was worried that as we went about the tour, we might encounter an over-excited medieval bat roused by hibernation by the highly unusual event of the heating being turned on in the winter ('nice and warm house' said Hudson several times ) but the bats behaved themselves and stayed asleep. Norman seemed to enjoy his tour of the Gatehouse - available for private let -  and even commented that we spoilt guests by giving them Wiliam Yeoward glasses in the dining room. As he said this, I nodded and didn't admit that my housekeeper had spent all morning carrying plates of fine glasses from the Hall dining room to the Gatehouse to add some style to the dining room. In the event, we didn't win. 

The good news is that Upton Cressett did win for 'Hidden Gem', the category I really wanted to win and which was the category that had the strongest competition of any other category - at least eight other nominees. After all the romantic heartache, hard-work and painful cheque writing of the last four years, being nominated for three categories was especially satisfying, not the least as other nominees in other categories included such stately blockbuster houses as Burghley, Chatsworth (which could only manage a Highly Commended) and Beaulieu. I very much felt like the provincial English underdog who wins on Hollywood's big night but that was whole point of the Hidden Gem category - to award a historic house that is off the beaten track, which Upton Cressett most certainly is.

There is an even a much watched five minute video on You Tube which is called 'The Drive To Upton Cressett' where an amateur film-maker has made a short Bullet-style film of our unbelievably remote and winding lane which screams: nobody can possibly live here. As soon as Norman Hudson, in his judges remarks, said that the winner was 'an Elizabethan house located down an ancient three mile single lane road in the middle of glorious nowhere', I knew the framed certificate being held by Lady Lucinda Lambton would soon be hanging in the Upton Cressett downstairs cloakroom.

In his judging remarks, Norman Hudson also singled out the brilliant and original work of artist Adam Dant as being a deciding factor in the judges decision. We weren't able to give speeches but Adam Dant was there at the lunch as my guest and as we sat afterwards enjoying a post awards drink at Claridge's bar, I said to him that one of the world's worst cliches was that when people win awards they always say that the award is a 'team effort'. But in the case of Upton Cressett the true winner is Adam Dant.