Just over a month ago we reported that North Cornwall had experienced a very dry April. Today we are compelled to report that North Cornwall has experienced a very damp May!
The forthcoming summit of the G7 nations is taking place on the north coast of Cornwall, just down the road from Davidstow . According to the G7 UK web site:
In June, Prime Minister Boris Johnson will welcome fellow G7 leaders to one of the most beautiful parts of the UK: Carbis Bay in Cornwall.
Other parts of the region will also play a key role in the Summit, including neighbouring St Ives, Falmouth and Newquay airport.
With over 400 miles of coastline, Cornwall’s stunning landscape provides a perfect setting for world leaders to come together and discuss how to respond to global challenges like coronavirus and climate change.
Here’s one of my recent pictures of some of that coastline, including part of Cornwall’s industrial heritage and some large waves!
Cornwall Council has recently issued guidance about the G7 summit, which is likely to be of interest to both residents and visitors to the area over the next couple of weeks. Here it is:
Devon and Cornwall force expect challenges ranging from foreign leaders’ security to gull attacks on drones.
The police force in charge of law and order at the G7 summit in Cornwall has said it faces challenges ranging from the “tricky” business of liaising with foreign leaders’ security details to not wrecking people’s holidays – and stopping gulls from attacking their drones.
Devon and Cornwall police, which is leading the operation for next month’s summit, said officers, backed by military planners and intelligence agencies, would patrol from the land, air and sea to keep the event safe.
On Tuesday it allowed reporters to watch firearms officers going through their paces and drone pilots practising their skills as final preparations were made for the largest operation in its history.
Officers fired Heckler and Koch G36 carbines and Glock pistols in an indoor range at the force’s headquarters in Exeter. They will also have access to a range of other equipment including baton rounds, typically used in riot control, Taser stun guns, smoke and stun grenades and incapacitant spray.
It probably makes sense to stay away from those areas over the long weekend of the G7 event, unless you have a particular reason to go there? Surfing Watergate Bay certainly looks to be fraught with difficulty!
All the current Davidstow parish councillors have been re-elected without opposition, so we have had to look further afield for some election day excitement. On Thursday instead of our usual gentle stroll to the other side of Tremail we had to take a drive in Lisa, our trusty Nissan LEAF electric vehicle:
We spent yesterday “live Tweeting” the election results from across Cornwall as they arrived, including this “shock news” from our recently boundary changed local district:
Now officially confirmed.
Full disclosure: I didn't vote for Barry, so personally I'm gutted!
What would the result have been with a single transferable vote, like the Devon & Cornwall #PoliceCommisioner election?
What passes for #democracy in the once United Kingdom delivers a majority of seats around the @CornwallCouncil table to @Conservatives in return for a mere 37% of the votes.
With a 37% share of the “popular vote” the Conservative Party now has a 7 seat majority on the “redistricted” Cornwall Council. With a 9% share of the vote the Green Party has but a single seat. Personally I cannot comprehend what the farmers and fisherfolk of Kernow were thinking when they voted for someone sporting a true blue rosette.
The official announcement on the Cornwall Fire & Rescue section of the Cornwall Council web site concerning the most recent “wildfire” in the vicinity of Brown Willy/Roughtor is fairly bland:
Rough Tor area at 22/04/2021 09:47
Cornwall Fire and Rescue resources have been in attendance throughout the day at a multiple seated fire covering an extremely large area, crews have been using beaters and hosereel jets to check the spread of the fire. There have been appliances in attendance from Delabole and Wadebridge, also the Wadebridge Water Carrier. A Wildfire Officer is on scene this evening and monitoring the incident which is likely to progress well through the night. Arson is suspected, Devon & Cornwall Police have been informed.
Update 0030 hours: Approximately two hectares of gorse is affected, with hot spots continuing to smoulder, crews are monitoring and continuing to damp down.
My bold! The assorted pictures on Twitter are much more revealing, including some from the intrepid investigative reporters from Davidstow.info:
It's 4.17am. I have just left Bodmin and Delabole fire crews still dealing with a large fire at Roughtor. Once again putting themselves at risk over difficult terrain to prevent fire spreading. Thank you @BodminCFRS@DelaboleCFRSpic.twitter.com/r6A3aRbm7P
Our pump, light 4×4 appliance and water carrier spent over 10 hours dealing with a fire near #RoughTor yesterday. The deep-seated fire was spread over 2 hectares.
There were two similar fires in the same area around this time last year. Since then some CCTV cameras have been installed:
What additional steps could be taken to try and apprehend the guilty party(s), who apparently have no qualms about incinerating the local wildlife on a regular basis?
The Environment Agency publishes a weekly report on recent rainfall across England. Here’s an interesting graphic from the most recent edition:
The EA also maintains a large number of automated rainfall monitoring stations across the country. As revealed by this map, the nearest one to Davidstow is up the hill near the A39 “Atlantic Highway”:
Here’s its rainfall record for the past four weeks:
The last really rainy day is just about to disappear off the end of the chart.
After a really rainy winter this perhaps makes a very pleasant change? Don’t forget to water your gardens though!
— Laurence Reed UK BBC 🎙 (@laurencereed) May 13, 2020
Since I’d already been writing to my MP about the probable problems of policing the new Covid-19 lockdown exercise guidance revealed by Boris Johnson over the weekend, the thought of asking Shaun Sawyer a question or two was irresistible! I duly dialled the listed number and was told to expect a call back once Shaun Sawyer was on air later in the afternoon.
Sure enough a couple of hours later I was listening to what Shaun had to say when my mobile phone rang. Now listening via my phone I heard Laurence frighten Shaun off by asking him about his worst ever date! Not long after that Laurence said my name. You can hear what happened after that by fast forwarding the following recording on BBC Sounds to 1:53:45
The recording will be available for another 29 days, and during that time I’ll endeavour to post a more complete transcript below. For the moment here’s an extract to give you a flavour:
Jim – I was hoping to speak to our Chief Constable, but he’s gone… Can I make my point?
Laurence – Please do.
Jim – Lots of other people have made all sorts of other points that I was endeavouring to get across to our Chief Constable, but I’ll just quote one from Twitter, not written by me. He was “tweeting” to Shaun, saying “What do you make of the ill thought out, poor legislation made in haste by our Government?”. So my question would have been “Has the Government consulted either the Chief Constable of Devon and Cornwall or indeed the Chief Constable’s organisation before implementing these hasty, ill thought out measures that all of us in Devon and Cornwall are having to put up with?”
He’s gone, so I can’t ask him!
Plus the question I’d have put to @CCShaunSawyer if you hadn’t frightened him away with a question about his first date!
Before the recent “easing” of the #lockdown regulations, were you and/or the @PoliceChiefs as a whole consulted about the new “infinite exercise” guidance?
Here is the output of James Annan’s Covid-19 epidemic model, comparing what actually happened with what would have happened if the UK lockdown had been imposed one week earlier:
To summarise, that’s 11,000 simulated deaths if lockdown had taken place on March 16th, instead of around 43,000 actual deaths following lockdown on March 23rd.
As the editor of Davidstow.info on Monday May 11th I wrote to Scott Mann, the Member of Parliament for North Cornwall, to express this view:
How on Earth does HM Government expect Devon and Cornwall Police to enforce the rules that from Wednesday “Driving from London to surf” in North Cornwall is OK but then “staying in a tent, B&B, hotel or second home” is punishable by an increased fine?
What if somebody drives down from up country in a traditional VW “surf bus” for example, and kips in the back for a few nights?
Scott Mann’s Parliamentary Assistant replied on his behalf as follows:
It would not be permissible for someone to travel down in a camper and stay the night.
In any case, the Government is largely relying on the public’s common sense – the regulations are there to provide some clarity. It is not, to my mind or yours I imagine, a good idea for people to travel across the UK and risk spreading this disease! Hopefully the public can deploy sufficient common sense for it not to be too great an issue.
The police are doing a brilliant job of enforcing these restrictions, and from following their social media I can see they have taken numerous actions to prevent people from breaking the regulations. Whilst they cannot stop everybody, they can certainly act as a disincentive.
I hope this helps.
Subsequently the Davidstow.info Twitter feed expressed this sentiment yesterday morning:
On my habitual Covid-19 lockdown permitted cycle ride across Davidstow Moor earlier today I glanced in the direction of Roughtor and noticed something strange. I cycled across the moor, parked my bike by the fence, hopped over the stile and walked to the edge of Crowdy reservoir.
Here is what I discovered:
The part of Crowdy Marsh I crossed wasn’t marshy. What’s more the water level in the reservoir seemed very low for the time of year, particularly given the winter we’ve just experienced!
News has reached us via the What’s On in Camelford Facebook page of another big blaze on Bodmin Moor.
Emma Williams has a good view of the Moor from her garden, and reports this morning:
Another fire been started at the same place near Roughtor absolutely ridiculous! They are putting people’s lives at risk as if the fire service doesn’t have enough to deal with!
Graeme and I had just gone out into our front garden to let the dog out when we noticed it and phoned it in at 12.20 AM. There were cars up on Davidstow Moor. I cannot understand why anyone would be driving around there at that time, and when the blue lights appeared they turned their headlights off.
It was small when we first saw it but within 5 – 10 minutes it had got to the size of what you see in the first photo and then kept spreading. Which is why we were suspicious that it hadn’t long been started due to the speed it spread.
Thanks very much to Emma for these pictures of the fire and its aftermath:
P.S. After a bike ride up on to Davidstow Moor, here are my own images of the two big blackened bits of Bodmin Moor:
This evening we took a much closer look at the site of the second fire on the Moor:
Some more pictures of the recent #BodminMoorArson, from much closer up. We walked the long way round from #Roughtor car park to Showery Tor, including a walk through the affected area:https://t.co/TZccc89j6n
A photo essay on my trip to locked down Camelford earlier today for essential medical purposes, courtesy of Twitter:
Lisa the #LEAF and I travelled into #Camelford today. My essential journey was to the Churchfields car park to have a blood sample extracted.
Due to the #Covid19 pandemic Lisa acted as the surgery. If you arrived on foot a tent in the garden pretended to be the surgery instead. pic.twitter.com/WHJyxUEIAl
There was no queue outside when I arrived. I was allowed inside this building immediately! The counter staff were protected by perspex windows. Most wore masks as well.
In the early evening a cycle ride up to Davidstow Moor was the order of the day:
I did see a few masked up folk in the street today, but many more without. Several were evidently not conforming to the social distancing measures displayed in the gate to Enfield Park. Perhaps they hadn’t been to either the park or the doctors’ surgery recently?
