Latest news with #Bechstein
Pembrokeshire Herald
28-04-2025
- General
- Pembrokeshire Herald
Gone, but most definitely not forgotten
SOMEWHERE in the heart of Pembrokeshire sits a long-abandoned farmhouse, barely visible through decades of overgrowth. Its windows are broken, its front door stands ajar and its floors are covered in debris. A solitary Singer sewing machine stands in the centre of the kitchen as poignant reminder of the lives of the people who once lived there. 'Coming across places like this – beautiful properties which have just been abandoned and left to decay – is tragic,' said one of the people responsible for setting up B&R Urban Explorers UK, the Pembrokeshire-based group whose mission is to seek out forgotten places. 'Each of these properties were once full of life, but now everything has just been left standing still.' Last week B&R were given permission to visit the Haverfordwest Junior Voluntary Controlled School in Barn Street, which closed its classroom doors for the last time in 2018. There they discovered three wooden plaques dating back to the 1920's, each bearing testimony to the pupils' successes, while dozens of classroom photographs were found discarded on the floor. A similar discovery was made in Tasker Milward School where plaques naming the head boys and head girls from 1978 and the students who had won scholarships were found in the vacated building, as well as a full-sized Bechstein grand piano left abandoned in the main hall. 'These things meant so much to so many, and that's not just the children, but their parents, their families and the teaching staff at each of the schools,' continued R, who prefers to be called by his initials. 'Surely items such as these should be respected and looked after? And if they can't be moved to an alternative school, then why can't they be placed in the town museum?' Since launching B&R Explorers UK in March of this year, R and his partner have visited a number of forgotten properties all over the UK. But it goes without saying that the couple has a special affinity for the places they're discovering closer to their home which is in Milford Haven. In addition to the Haverfordwest schools, they recently explored Hakin Infant School which is due to be demolished later this year, where they discovered discarded photographs of children, which included ones of their daughter, as well as Oakwood, the Brawdy Lanes bowling alley, Roch Gate Hotel and many abandoned Pembrokeshire farmhouses. 'We recently visited a property that we've christened 'The Whiskey House', because when we walked into the outside shed, we found a whiskey bottle lying there, waiting for its owner's return and in the middle of the kitchen, we found an old Singer sewing machine. 'We've also visited Dylan Thomas' auntie's house, near Laugharne, which has obviously been empty for many years because one of the upstairs ceilings had fallen through. The house is still full of items, some of which are antique, and it's so sad to see this happening to so many properties around our county. 'Little Milford House is another prime example. It's owned by the National Trust, and when we got there earlier this year, we discovered that the front door had been left open. The yale lock had been left on its latch, so anyone could have walked in. We made sure the door was properly closed when we left, but once again it's such a shame to see a property of this stature being left to decay. Little Milford is such a popular area with walkers, I'm sure the house could be enjoyed by so many others.' Since launching B&R Urban Explorers UK on social media, the site has attracted a healthy 1,000 people who have begun following in just just over a month. 'This has been something of a surprise to us, but it also shows just how much interest people are taking in the properties and the communities around them,' concludes R. 'By discovering these properties and by sharing our findings with the public, we're hopeful that a little more attention will be given to them and items, like the plaques we found in Tasker Milward and Haverfordwest Junior voluntary schools, will get the recognition and respect that they deserve.'
Bloomberg
07-03-2025
- Politics
- Bloomberg
The ‘Bat Tunnel' Is the Least of HS2's Sins
If there is a mascot for Britain's greatest infrastructure shambles, it's Bechstein's bat. A colony of the rare mammals, which are listed as vulnerable to extinction in Europe, inhabits an ancient woodland in the path of HS2, the blighted high-speed railway program. Disclosure that HS2 Ltd. planned to spend about £100 million ($128 million) on a 'bat tunnel' to protect them spurred equal measures of outrage and ridicule. The controversy shouldn't overshadow more serious questions over the historic mishandling of a landmark project. The tunnel was singled out for mention in a damning report released last week by Parliament's Public Accounts Committee, whose job is to scrutinize spending and hold the government and civil servants to account. The tunnel didn't strike the right balance between protecting wildlife and the burden on the taxpayer, the cross-party committee said, in pronouncing HS2 a 'casebook example' of how not to run a major project. The Department of Transport had failed in its oversight, and the project now posed a 'reputational risk' to the UK, it said. The report called for responses before summer on what value can now be salvaged for taxpayers from an investment approaching £80 billion.
Sky News
11-02-2025
- Politics
- Sky News
Keir Starmer has declared war on £100m HS2 bat shed - but has he got a solution?
Has Sir Keir Starmer picked a fight with a bat tunnel that - in time - he will eventually discover he just can't win? For the last six months, the prime minister has singled out the most hated construction site in Britain for criticism - a kilometre-long, £100m shed to protect bats in Buckinghamshire from the high speed trains of the future. Sir Keir regularly thunders that this is the emblem of a broken planning system. His chancellor says such things will never happen again. But is their joint political sonar advanced enough to avoid a collision in the coming months? Recent weeks have seen a slew of announcements from Number 10 to prove they are taking on the "blockers" in order to get Britain building. But government sources conceded to Sky News they are yet to reveal a plan which would stop such structures having to be built again in future. HS2 will continue to build this bat tunnel, due to be complete in 2027, come what may. A compromise plan - that would see developers pay into a single government-controlled pot - has left experts and industry figures unimpressed, saying it would not stop another bat tunnel. The experts also warn that they struggle to see how the government prevents future absurd and costly structures without repealing nature and habitat laws we inherited from the EU. To roll back on these protections would mean not only war with the environmental movement, but also breaching our trade agreement with the EU - all to get Britain building again. There is no obvious answer, yet ministers on Monday insisted one is still coming soon. This comes as today Sky News shows the first ever pictures of the HS2 bat tunnel, showing the scale and breath of the ten-figure development through the Buckinghamshire countryside and taken despite our request for permission to go on site by the government-owned company being declined. By scrambling through trees and trudging through muddy public footpaths, we were able access open space close enough to the structure, to film the site in detail with a drone without crossing into HS2 land - and it makes quite the spectacle. Three miles north west of Aylesbury, cutting through the countryside like a scar and wedged between two industrial waste incinerators, we show from the sky the roofless skeleton of the kilometre-long shed which will insulate railway tracks being built in Buckinghamshire - and protect the bats. The aim is to stop a rare breed known as the Bechstein, which lives in an ancient woodland adjacent to the route, from hitting future high speed trains when they run from London to Birmingham. The entire structure exists so that HS2 can comply with "The Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017" - a set of regulations which protects rare species, derives from the EU Habitats Directive and remains in force in the UK to this day despite Brexit. Although often wrongly summarised as meaning "no bat death is acceptable", regulator Natural England did advise HS2 that to comply with this law, the company would need to maintain the "favourable conservation status" for the 300 bats once construction was complete. No easy feat. HS2 executives mulled digging a tunnel, noise-based deterrents and rerouting the line, which would slow down the High Speed trains and prove too expensive. They also looked at barriers alongside the railway or a looser netting structure over the railway - but none of these would have been guaranteed to deliver the standard of protection required by law. But their engineers and consultants advised the cheapest, legally safest route was the shed being built today. And after four years of meetings with the local council, construction began and continues to this day. The government's growth mission champion, Dan Tomlinson MP, who visited the bat tunnel site with Sky News, said reform is vital. "We need to find a way to reduce the cost of infrastructure in this country. Yes, protecting our wildlife too. But if we don't do that, we won't be able to build and we won't be able to make this country grow again, which is something that's been lacking for so long," he told me. But can they stop this in future? The government insists the answers will come in as-yet-unpublished future planning legislation and yesterday government doubled down on its ambition. "Spending vast sums to build a 'bat tunnel' is ludicrous," said a spokesman. "For too long, regulations have held up the building of homes and infrastructure, blocking economic growth and doing little for nature. That is why we are introducing new planning reforms and a nature restoration fund to unblock the building of homes and infrastructure and improve outcomes for our natural world. This will deliver a win-win for the economy and nature." But a nature restoration fund may not provide all the answers, according to experts. Under this plan, the government is proposing that developers who potentially fall foul of habitat and nature rules give money to a pot to fund delivery of wider strategic projects that help nature, rather than trying to compensate for each potential breach of the habitat regulations. Lawyers think that the idea of a fund makes sense for groups of projects affecting exactly the same species and habitat, but the majority of problems arise where a single project creates its own issues - as is the case of HS2 and the bat tunnel. "The concept of pooling funds for a grand compensation project which ticks the habitats regulations box for a number of projects onshore therefore seems challenging," wrote Catherine Howard from law firm Herbert Smith Freehills. "It is certainly going to take a lot of time, effort and cost for the government or regulators to think through what sort of onshore strategic compensation might need to be put in place, and then to deliver it. "Can decisions be made in the meantime reliant on the promise that such compensation will come forward?". But if there isn't a compromise option which appeals to ministers, repealing or downgrading habitat and nature rules is the only option. This, however, would be likely to put the UK in breach of a number of international treaties, including the Trade and Cooperation Agreement entered into by the UK and the European Union in April 2021 to govern post Brexit relations and maintain a "level playing field". Pro-growth pressure group Britain Remade says while promises of stopping future bat tunnels should be applauded, "there is a real risk is that if their planning bill doesn't include changes to inherited EU law on protected sites and species, we're stuck with the worst of both worlds: a status quo that stops us building and also fails to protect the countryside". But attempts to change those laws would cross a red line for environmental campaigners. The RSPB, which has 1.2 million members, is already sounding the alarm over the rhetoric from Sir Keir and Rachel Reeves. Chief executive Beccy Speight told me while some parts of government are taking a "constructive" approach, her organisation would fight any attempt to water down the nature laws. "I'm am absolutely clear that we can't go backwards in terms of the protections we already have in place for nature, because nature is on its knees and we need to do something about that," she told Sky News. Sir Keir has made ending ludicrous bat tunnels the test of his planning reforms time after time. This could prove a much trickier issue than anyone anticipated.
