I’m hopping mad.
I gave a speech opposing a Bio Station at Commonhead roundabout, between the hospital and Liddington village. It will be ugly by day, lit up from dusk, an assault on the night in a village that opted for dark skies. We lost. Next step is a costly judicial review.
The Bio Station will be visible from Liddington Hill, the Clump, Liddington village, Ham Road, Ridgeway Road, by the church in Upper Wanborough. It’ll stand like a carbuncle, as King Charles said elsewhere.
When we go out at dusk to watch the sun going down, the sun will be eclipsed by the light from the Bio Station. Polluting the skies with artificial light is an abomination. It disrupts circadian rhythms and sleep patterns, negatively affecting human health and increasing risk of diabetes, heart disease, cancers, depression, sleep disorders - a pressing public health concern for the families in Liden and Badbury Park close to the site.
And here’s a gem. The architects of GW Hospital changed the plans so the windows in the wards faced the panorama around Liddington Hill. Very soon the patients will have a new view, light pollution. The councillors who voted for this should be ashamed of themselves.
There’s a plaque on Liddington Hill dedicated to our nature writers, Richard Jefferies and Alfred Williams. The dominant view from that ancient site will be the Bio Station. So much for Swindon Borough Council protecting green spaces.
Richard Jeffries wrote:
Sweetly the summer air came up to the tumulus, the grass sighed softly, the butterflies went by, sometimes alighting on the green dome. Two thousand years! Stars, ruddy in the vapour of the southern horizon, beamed at midnight through the mystic summer night, which is dusky and yet full of light.
What would he write now?
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