Local Transport – Dengie Bioregion

New Paths – South Woodham Ferrers

April 3, 2026 James Piers TaylorLeave a comment

Last weekend I walked the two new local sections of the King Charles III England Coast Path (KC3ECP), this is my second account focusing on the new route between South Woodham Ferrers and Battlesbridge, part of the section WIB 3: Hawk Hill Bridge to Clementsgreen Creek [pdf]

After reaching South Woodham Ferrers, as described in the previous post, I left the sea wall at the western terminus of Clementsgreen Creek on to Creekview Road and walked across town to the railway station on pavemented streets.

I left the railway station through the station car park on to footpath FP 40 298 which travels west, through an underpass below Ferrers Road, into and part-way across Woodham Fenn nature reserve.

*Essex Highways PROW map showing footpath FP 40 298*

*Map of existing /proposed cycle routes in the* Chelmsford Cycling Plan, blue line in left middle is footpath FP 40 298 route (poor quality image in uploaded copy)

*Proposed cycle route using station carpark and railways owned land to avoid narrow sections of FP 40 298*

The section between the station and the underpass was proposed to be ungraded to a shared use path available to cyclists in the Chelmsford Cycling Action Plan (March 2017) [pdf]. It notes

‘there is also the possibility to connect to the station from the west by upgrading an existing footpath (Figure 6.6). However it appears the footpath uses an underpass to cross Ferrers Road and so to connect to the existing cycle route the levels difference would need to be addressed.’

(do the people who write these documents actually do site visits?)

(FP 40 298 has sections that are fairly narrow for a shared used path, but this could be easily addressed by using more of the railway station carpark and establishing a section of new route through land owned by the railways, as show in a map above)

It would be useful to connect this path into the Ferrers Road cycle route, but it would also be valuable to upgrade the full length of this footpath for cycle use, alongside sections of FP 35 298, FP 23 298 and FP 28 229 to provide a walk/wheel/cycle route from South Woodham Ferrers all the way to where Tabrum’s Lane is split by the A132 (this is the route I walked). The westerly section of Tabrum’s Lane, opposite where the route ends is a country lane ideal for being designated with Quiet Lane status. Immediately to the south the new Right of Way established parallel to the A132 commences for the KC3ECP.

As with the new section discussed in the previous post, it is disheartening to discover the lack of consideration for accessibility paid in the new stretch of Right of Way beginning at this point (WIB-3-S015). Across Tarbrum’s Lane, users are immediately confronted with steps.

There is a level change here, and the new path takes an elevated route, so some mechanism is necessary – but why not a slope accessible to a wider range of users? There is enough room here.

The route from here is recently cleared of trees and undergrowth. There’s no surface work, but its reasonably level. Foliage seems to have been cut at ground level rather than uprooted. Despite taking care, I stumbled on four occasions when I tripped on woody stumps protruding just above soil level. It seems pretty clear that there will be extensive regrowth here. Ground cover plants were already spreading and I suspect that many of the trees have effectively been coppiced and there will be new shoots from the stumps before too long. Side growth is also likely to be an issue, and the light newly reaching the floor will likely encourage blackberry incursion. As the path gains foot traffic, there will be some suppression through use but the maintenance task here should not be underestimated. My contact at Natural England noted:

‘I have previously discussed with colleagues at ECC that just clearing the scrub may not be sufficient and that there may need to be some form of surfacing (not metalled) if as I believe the enclosed nature means the ground lies wet for longer. The newly cleared areas will also encourage more vigorous side growth and spread of the likes of bramble and nettle. I encouraged them to consider seeding the length and then cutting it frequently (at least 4 times a year) to encourage a good grass cover but I don’t think this was undertaken.’

There’s an opportunity here for an infrastructure intervention that would decrease the maintenance task and expense by providing a surface suitable for bicycle use and giving the route the higher rights that would allow it. Making the route accessible to cyclists, with some surface work, slopes rather than steps and attention to a footbridge would also improve wider accessibility for walkers and wheelers.

There’s a scramble up where the path meets Hayes Chase. There’s no assistive infrastructure here at all yet, so it’s a clear opportunity for an accessible alternative to more steps.

The route continues from Hayes Chase in much the same way it got there, on a path parallel to both the A132 and the railway line, with the dame challenges as before.

The new section concludes when it reaches footpath FP 27 229 and a bridge (Wis/803 (meesons)) over the railway line. It’s an easy walk from here down a gravel track to the sea wall and west on that to join Maltings Road.

What about cyclists though? At this point we are very close to the proposed route of National Cycle Route 135 (Stock to Southend) [pdf] and potential for connecting South Woodham Ferrers and the Dengie peninsula into the national cycle network (as well as Battlesbridge railway station and local attractions Battlesbridge Antiques Centre, pubs and cafes). It’s not an opportunity we want to miss!

There’s the option again of upgrading existing footpaths and following the walking route, but are there better options?

Why not carry on the logic of the KC3ECP in using Network Rail land between the railway line and the A132?

This could potentially offer a route all the way to Battlebridge railway station, although an interesting alternative might be offered where the railway crosses long-distance path the Saffron Trail (footpath FP 24 229 at this point) to then take that path south to Maltings Road instead.

If we want to ‘Connect Essex through Cycling and Walking‘ then we have to think about cycling and walking, and identify opportunities where infrastructure for one can offer opportunities for the other – making wheeling easier in the process too. This is what a true Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan for rural Essex looks like.

Here’s my vision for what a cycle route between South Woodham Ferrers/The Dengie and Battlesbridge/National Cycle Route 125 looks like in total:

New Paths – North Fambridge

April 2, 2026April 3, 2026 James Piers Taylor1 Comment

Last weekend I walked the two new local sections of the King Charles III England Coast Path (KC3ECP) that I mentioned in the previous post. As pre-warned, these were open but unfinished. In this post I review the WIB4 section: Clementsgreen Creek, South Woodham Ferrers to The Quay,
North Fambridge [pdf]

North Fambridge section

This begins on pre-exisisting rights way:

I travelled on the ~~train~~ bus replacement from Burnham-on-Crouch to North Fambridge railway Station, took the stairs to the road bridge from the westbound platform and went north on Fambridge Road.

Footpath FP 5 256 goes west off Fambridge Road, opposite Franklin Road, on a short paved path leading on to Rectory Road. Rectory Road’s metalled surface peters out as it becomes the bridleway BR 17 256 which connects it to the metalled surface of Rookery Lane. A KC3ECP waymark disc appears on a post at teh start of Rookery Lane – the first seen on this route, and also the last for some time.

Apart from the 41 metres of Footpath FP 5 256, this already provides a good cycle route west out of North Fambridge.

[It’s also a potential walk/wheel/cycle connection route through to Stow Maries and the dismantled railway line using bridleways, residential streets and country lanes. Some attention would need to be paid to improving the Rookery Lane junction with the Lower Burnham Road (B1012), so as to afford safe access to Honey Pot Lane. Rookery Lane and Honey Pot Lane are only 100 metres apart but there is currently no footway, cycleway or controlled crossing facilitating safe transit.]

The new section of Right of Way begins where Rookery Lane takes a right angle turn north at Upper Grooms Farm (///fully.blushed.lecturers). The new Right of Way instead proceeds straight on along a farm track. There is no sign to be seen though, no fingerpost or waymark disc anywhere evident. This is exactly where a walker needs confidence, both on the route direction and that they have permission to go forward. The new Right of Way does not appear yet on the Essex Highways PROW interactive maps.

*The Upper Grooms Farm junction point on the Essex Highways PROW interactive map*

*Google Maps image of the same junction*

*My photo of the junction. No sign assures of the right of way ahead.*

The route immediately ahead is simple enough if you are brazen enough to take it following a gravelly farm track westwards for about 200m until it opens up into a defoliated area with a metal pole barn to the north and a static caravan to the south (this was once the site of Skinner’s Wick farm). Logic would suggest that you proceed directly across this area and through the hedgerow ahead. There’s no signage anywhere however. The hedgerow hints at having once had a path though it, but there is both side and surface growth preventing easy passage. North of the pole barn a farm track goes through the hedgerow and I took this. Reviewing the Natural England map for this section however, it is clear that the intended route is through the hedgerow where it was overgrown and that an existing field gate should be here but is not. (///utensil.monorail.submits)

The overgrown gap in the hedgerow.

*The white star is a red circle indicates where a pedestrian gate should provide passage through the hedgerow.*

To this point, the route from North Fambridge seems usable by both walkers and wheelers, and could be used by cyclists were higher rights allocated.

*The route south-west along the field edge*

On the west side of the hedgerow, the route proceeds south-west along the field edge, turning north-west when it meets a land drain and the south field edge. A 1.5m width of trail is to be established on the field edge, but there’s currently no evidence of that. The field is laid to grass and slopes southwards from the hedgerow entrance, dropping about 12m over 180m to the drain. This section could be improved in a way that would improve access for wheelers and also make it suitable for a cycleway.

The route leaves this field at an intersection of gates, stiles and a footbridge where the need for construction work is most clearly evident. What isn’t clearly evident is where you are supposed to go. There’s no signage, the Essex Highways interactive PROW map remains useless and the Natural England map is not detailed enough (///powerful.truckload.balconies). A farm gate leads into a field to the south, but the Natural England map suggests that the route goes north of the drain and involves a new footbridge and a new farm gate.

Directly to the west, about 360m as the crow flies, is the road Little Hayes Chase which forms part of the KC3ECP. Following the north field edge, its about 370m away. The only evident way forward from the last field is through the metal farm gate (which was chained shut) and into the field to to the south, where the logical way forward would be to follow that north field edge to Little Hayes Chase. This is a relatively flat route that could provide a good walk/wheel/cycle route.

I clambered over the farm gate into the south field from where I could see a nearby step stile on the north field edge leading towards a filed of vineyards. Comparing my GPS position on an electronic version of the OS175 map with the Natural England map, this appeared to be the route to take. It led on to a footbridge over a land drain. Once again, there was no signage to help here and the infrastructure is in a poor state. Both the step stile and the footbridge are in stages of decay and are unsafe, they lead to a pedestrian gate with broken fittings that provides access to the vineyard field. It’s a very fussy nexus, in need of redesign as much as repair or replacement. It’s unclear why it is proposed to have replacement pedestrian gates here rather than wheelchair/mobility device gates or, thinking ahead, bicycle-friendly gates.

From here the new route follows the south edge of the vineyard field. This runs parallel to the route described above on the other side of the drain until it reaches a copse, whereupon it follows the field edge north west until it meets footpath FP 23 261. The descriptive text in the natural England documents states that they opted for the proposed route because ‘it utilises existing rights of way, readily links land uses over several properties and generally follows a permitted route for an
annual long distance running event’. I think this event is the Stow Maries Trail Challenge, but it’s unnamed in the document and the Stow Maries Trail Challenge route is not public. The ‘other options considered’ in the document do not include a more direct route to Little Hayes Chase.

A break from the described route at the copse, to go more directly west to Little Hayes Chase could produce a more accessible option suitable for upgrading to a cycle way.

Around the point that a new pedestrian gate is proposed, there is a bridge over Great Hayes Brook and gate access into the field that leads to Little Hayes Chase (///widely.courts.fixtures).

I can see the attraction of connecting with, and utilising, an existing Right of Way (footpath FP 23 261) as the new route does, but this produces its own problems. When FP 23 261 leaves the vineyard field, it crosses Great Hayes Brook at a more difficult spot which involves a step stile, steps down to the brook, a footbridge and more steps up from the brook. This limits the accessibility of the route. The infrastructure here is, again, in poor condition. At the top of the steps the footpath proceeds across an area used by the local farm as a store of manure and a general dump. The route through this is poorly marked. When I walked it, the surface was very uneven and apparently solid earth was actually an unsound crust on fluid runoff from the manure pile into which feet began to sink. The route as shown on the Essex Highway PROW map goes through a body of water.

The step stile, footbridge and steps down to and up from the brook on FP 23 261

The unwelcoming manure swamp and dumping ground at the top of the steps

Cyclists unwelcome ahead

The ongoing route is all on pre-existing rights of way. Little Hayes Chase is a metalled road down to the railway crossing, beyond which a gravel track leads to a kissing gate and a slope up to the sea wall around Stow Creek (neither the gate or the slope are accessible for those using mobility aids). To travel onwards to South Woodham Ferrers, you must walk the sea wall along Stow Creek and Clements Green Creek. This serves the purpose of a coastal path well, keeping you close to the water. The purpose of the KC3ECP diverges here from the needs of the person simply travelling between North Fambridge and South Woodham Ferrers. The KC3ECP route is therefore frustrating if you are walking for utility rather than leisure. An additional westward route aligned seaward of the railway line from the crossing to Saltcoats Park would provide a useful quicker route here.

Where Little Hayes Chase reaches the railway crossing there is lots of communication warning off cyclists from going forward. Warnings repeated at the kissing gate by the sea wall. A new westward route from the crossing could take cycle traffic however. A small amount of work improving transfer from the Saltcoats Park entrance to Cutlers Road/Saltcoats Industrial Estate (just 67m away) would afford onward cycle journeys a connection with the Chelmsford City Council promoted cycling route around South Woodham Ferrers, including the fully segregated cycle path into the town centre.

There’s clearly still work for Essex Highways to do on this new section of the Coast Path, including signage, gates, stiles, steps and bridges on the ground, as well as adding the route the Essex PROW map. It’s frustrating that in the week the KC3ECP was announced as fully open, a section approved over two years ago is incomplete because of the recent illness of a contractor. This delay provides an opportunity to think more creatively about the possibilities offered by this route however and to ensure it is accessible to the widest set of users.

*Mid-Essex LCWIP proposals* *(detail from larger map) around the Crouch Valley*

The Mid Essex Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan failed to identify a route connecting the settlements along the north bank of the Crouch Valley. As I’ve noted previously, the Essex Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan states that rural routes will draw on bridleways, byways and quiet lanes – but we have don’t have much of that locally and a broader approach to identifying routes needs to be made. This will necessarily include upgrading rights and infrastructure on some footpaths to form shared use paths accessible by walkers, wheelers and cyclists. It will also require the establishment of entirely new rights of way, just at the England Coast Path has done here.

There’s more on this to be said in relation to the other new section of the KC3ECP I walked last weekend. The section between South Woodham Ferrers and Battlesbridge, but that will have to wait for the next post.

Way to Go

March 27, 2026 James Piers Taylor1 Comment

[This article develops a recent Facebook post with more maps and discussion of cycle route potentials]

I received communication this week that ‘the King Charles III England Coast Path (KC3ECP), and its associated accessible coastal margin is now open around the full Dengie peninsula.’

There were some caveats in the communication, which I copy below

‘the King Charles III England Coast Path between Wallasea Island and Burnham-on-Crouch opened this morning.

Unfortunately with 2 weeks to go before the commencement date one of the contractors working for Essex County Council, on the north side of the Crouch, fell seriously ill. This has meant that although we continued with the commencement of the access rights, there may be a few pieces of infrastructure to finish off. Essex County Council are managing this as best as they can. It shouldn’t stop the onward journey, but under foot conditions may not be ideal at this point in time.

Now that the stretch is open, and in common with all other open stretched of the National Trail, responsibility for maintenance and related issues lies wholly with Essex County Council. If you ever have any concerns, I’d encourage you to reach out to Essex Council Highways/Rights of Way teams.’

There were 2 useful additions approved locally:

a path alongside the A132 Burnham Road connecting South Woodham Ferrers and Battlesbridge.
new permissions over a farm track between North Fambridge and Little Hayes Farm – allowing the route between North Fambridge and South Woodham Ferrers to avoid the long detour up around Stow Maries which involved crossing the B1012.

*New KC3ECP route connecting with footpath FP 28 229 to the North*, which leads toward South Woodham Ferrers

*Continuation of the new KC3ECP path to where it meets footpath FP 27 229 providing access to Battlesbridge*

*New section of KC3ECP* *path/PROW on farm tracks connecting Rookery Land North Fambridge at Upper Grooms Farm with Little Hayes Chase and footpath FP 22 261 around Stow Creek.*

I hadn’t seen much action on the A132 section last time I passed, so it might not be more than cutting foliage back on the verge. I’ll take a look at both the South Woodham Ferrers and North Fambridge this weekend, but I welcome comment from anyone else too!

UPDATE: I had confirmation from Natural England regarding the A132 section:

‘The major works undertaken along the sections WIB-3-S012 and S016 is the clearance of the vegetation and the creation of a route within the scrub, which I know has happened. There were some bridges and I believe some steps (at the S012 end) and these were being installed by the contractor that has fallen ill.

That said I believe the route is passable. I certainly managed to walk it this time last year in low walking boots and managed to pass without any bridges being in place.

I have previously discussed with colleagues at ECC that just clearing the scrub may not be sufficient and that there may need to be some form of surfacing (not metalled) if as I believe the enclosed nature means the ground lies wet for longer. The newly cleared areas will also encourage more vigorous side growth and spread of the likes of bramble and nettle. I encouraged them to consider seeding the length and then cutting it frequently (at least 4 times a year) to encourage a good grass cover but I don’t think this was undertaken. I hope they keep an eye on the condition of this section. It will not be Natural England’s responsibility to do so.’

Improving the surface of A132 section to make it suitable for cycle traffic could provide part of a useful connector between the SWF/Dengie and the proposed National Cycle Route 135 at Battlesbridge.

If higher rights allowing bicycle use were allocated to footpaths FP 40 298 (772m), FP 23 298 (119 m), FP 28 229 (650m) and a short section of FP 35 298 (connecting FP 40 298 and FP 23 298) then South Woodham Ferrers, and its railway station, would have a safe, segregated, westward route out for cyclists (the footbridge in Woodhasm Fen might also need some adjustment).

Similarly, where the new A132 path meets FP 27 229, some higher rights for bicycles on FP 27 229 (670) and FP 41 229 (654m) would provide access to Maltings Road, Battlesbridge allowing connection to the proposed National Cycle Network route 135 and Battlesbridge railway station at Hawk Hill.

Section of proposed NCN 135 around Battlesbridge

Higher rights on specific footpaths to allow use bicycles, whether by upgrading to bridleways or otherwise, is one thing – but this doesn’t in itself ensure that the route is suitable for cycling. Soem surfacing work may also be necessary to achieve that.

At the Battlesbridge end, I’m not convinced the footpath route described above is ideal. It would be better I think to create a new track, on Dons Farm land, from the bridge – parallel to the railway, before going South on the existing farm track to Maltings Road. Dons Farm belongs, I believe to DJ Fisher Farms.

*Proposed new route* *from Bridge (803?) to Maltings Road*

*Full proposed route South Woodham Ferrers to Battlebridge*

The Essex-wide LCWIP

February 8, 2026February 9, 2026 James Piers TaylorLeave a comment

Like me, many of you may have responded to the Essex County Council consultation on the ‘Essex Wide Walking and Cycling Infrastructure Plan’. The results of that consultation were quietly released last August (2025), so you may not have seen them. I’m still working through the documents and I welcome comment and feedback from anyone else who braves them!

[As a reminder, settlements of 20k+ population each got their own Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan (LCWIP) while everywhere else in Essex was covered by the ‘Essex Wide’ plan. As no settlement on the Dengie reached the 20k threshold, the entire peninsula is covered by that plan. Maldon & Heybridge’s population combined exceeds 20K so they have a separate LCWIP. One of the maps in that document indicates a ‘secondary cycle route’ from Maldon into the Dengie using the B1010/Fambridge Road and ending abruptly at the Baron’s Lane junction]  

The Consultation response consists of three documents :

Al of these can be accessed here

The Summary Report is not particularly informative. It contains a timeline of three steps which ends with ‘Autumn/Winter 2025/2026 Development of pipeline of infrastructure schemes’ – we are in the last weeks of that period now but I can find no further information on these infrastructure schemes. 
If you commented on the consultation, you should find your remarks reflected in the Consultation Report (the Dengie is poorly represented in the maps included in this document with just a glimpse of the south of the peninsula to the top of the South Essex Map) 
The most interesting of the three documents is the Technical Report which includes new maps identifying potential key walking and cycling networks which I share below, with zoomed in images of the Dengie.

The ‘route proposals’ in the Final Network Plans look identical to those in the Consultation document however, they don’t reflect these key walking and cycling networks, and they follow existing roads without a clear sense of how walking and cycling will be made safe on these highways.

The Technical report notes that:

‘Given the rural nature of the area [Essex], the plan prioritises cross-boundary connections between towns and cities, utilising off-road routes like Public Rights of Way (PROWs) and bridleways, and innovative on-road cycling solutions in constrained networks.‘

The Summary Report expands this slightly in it’s introduction:

‘Given the mainly rural nature of Essex, the Essex-wide plan prioritises links between villages, towns and cities. The proposals aim to make use of off-road routes such as byways and bridleways, alongside innovative on-road cycling solutions on space-limited networks such as quiet lanes to deliver the LCWIPs.’

The nod to rural areas is appreciated but I’m dismayed that the strategy seems to depend on:

existing byways (there are 3 on the Dengie totalling 2714m in length)
existing bridleways (there are 8 on the Dengie totalling 9,178m in length)
existing ‘quiet lanes’ (there are none designated in Maldon District totalling 0m in length)

That’s a total of a bit over 7 miles of ways that already exist and that we know are not fit to provide a continuous cycling route – they are isolated, dispersed, poorly connected and provide no east-west connections. I haven’t yet found any reference to improvement works on these already existing paths, so its unclear what the consultation/strategy/plans have added to the status quo.

It may be that the plan is for new off-road routes, new byways, bridleways and quiet lanes – which would be great! I haven’t found any hint of that in the documents yet though.

You’ll also have noted that the walking and cycling plans often seem to just talk about cycling. New cycling routes would also increase capacity for those walking and wheeling but it would be good to see some more reference to the particular needs of all active transport users in these reports

The Technical Report prepared by consultants WSP has a photograph on its first page of a rural cycle path, with a bike propped up against a smart wayfinding post which immediately had me wondering where in Essex this was, as I haven’t seen anything like it in the county before. I zoomed in to see more detail – at the top there’s a logo and text for the ‘Essex Region Conservation Authority’, neither of which I recognise, and the phrase ‘Essex Region’ sounds off. Below this are some co-ordinates that seem off too and a distance marker to somewhere called McGregor. The final square on the post has a person with a rifle on it and the legend ‘No Hunting’.

If you hadn’t guessed it yet, this photograph isn’t from the English county of Essex, it’s from 6000km away in Essex County, Ontario, Canada – close to the motor city of Detroit. It’s a photo on the Chrysler Greenway, a 50-kilometre nature trail that comprises the southernmost link of the Trans Canada Trail – at 28,000 km (17,000 mi) the longest recreational, multi-use trail network in the world.

I trust that this indicates the scale and ambition of Essex County Council’s plans rather than a stock photography fail by a WSP intern and I look forward to the Autumn/Winter 2025/2026 announcement of the infrastructure schemes to make it happen!

Poop-Poop

December 12, 2025 James Piers Taylor2 Comments

Mr Toad drives his vintage automobile down Southminster Road

Barely a week goes by now without a collision on the Dengie roads. A couple of months ago this sadly included two fatalities. There’s clearly a problem with drunk and drug driving, but this appears to be a factor in only a minority of cases and doesn’t sufficiently explain the frequency of dangerous driving incidents. While excess speed is likely a factor, that doesn’t necessarily mean speeding —the recent Department of Transport study Road safety factors: initial analysis (30 May 2024) found that only 19% of fatal road collisions are recorded as a driver exceeding the speed limit. A fact which caused Sam Wakeling of campaign group Living Streets to ask: ‘Does that suggest that a whole lot of deadly speed is accepted within the legal limit? And that our speed limits are not set at safe levels?

Yesterday saw another collision on Mayland Hill. The B1018 (Southminster Road) around the Mayland Hill/Dairy Farm Road junction is proving to be an accident hotspot. The default ‘national speed limit applies’ is clearly not working for the Dengie’s roads. This is just one location where speed limits need to be reduced with traffic calming infrastructure to enforce slower speeds.

Mayland Hill and Dairy Farm Road are good candidates for ‘Quiet Lane’ status – and to be made priority routes for walkers/wheelers/cyclists. Measures need to be implemented to avoid their use as rat runs. Unless and until, safe segregated direct routes for walkers, wheelers and cyclists are created (connecting every settlement on the Dengie) the carriageway network must be managed to meet the needs and security of all road users. All the tools in the arsenal must be applied.

While it is the drivers of automobiles that hold the responsibility for the increasing jeopardy on our road network, they sadly remain the privileged users of that network.

It makes one bound to ask: when was the first appearance of a motor car on the Dengie?

Was it this leisure run in the June of 1900, the first Summer of the Twentieth Century?

*The Essex County Chronicle* (Friday 29 June 1900), p.3

Apparently, Edmund Ernest Bentall of the Maldon agricultural equipment manufacturing family purchased a twin cylinder Georges Richard car in 1900 and become the first motorist in the district (Bentalls later made automobiles themselves) – but it looks like the Old Chelmsfordians may have beaten him out on to the peninsula, travelling as far as Southminster.

In its course and location, the road network then was much the same then as it is now, indeed as it had been for centuries. These routes were made by walkers, and to a lesser extent horse riders and carters. In the 1890s they were joined by bicyclists.

What we now call the B1010, the B1012, the B1018, the B1021, all the ‘priority routes’ recognised by Essex Highways and most of the local roads too, are already visible on the Chapman/Andre Map of Essex of 1777 – the first comprehensive chart of the county. In fact, the major routes on the Dengie could already be seen on a map of 1724: A new and correct mapp of Middlesex, Essex, and Hertford-shire, with the roads rivers sea-coast &c. actually surveyed by John Warburton, Joseph Bland and Payler Smyth.

Much of the B1010, B1018 and B1021 to be, as well as the road running from Latchingdon through Steeple and St Lawrence to Bradwell are seen on the even earlier A map of the county of Essex: by a new survey … (1696) ‘performed by John Oliver’. Undoubtedly, these ways predate mapping and follow the lines of prehistoric pathfinding. They remain the ‘main arteries for the flow of commerce, goods and people‘.

The automobile was the Johnny-come-lately joining road users which had enjoyed these paths for hundreds of years. Bridleways, byways and footpaths were additional to these — not substitutes for them, routes to be retired to when the motor-car demanded the road. The rights-of-way for walkers and riders include the roads they have used since time immemorial.

*Bacon’s new survey map of the counties of Essex, Hertford, Middlesex and London* (c.1910)

*Map of Essex* (1777) by John Chapman & Peter André

Essex Highways Information Map (Accessed 2025) showing local highway network

From *A new and correct mapp of Middlesex, Essex, and Hertford-shire, with the roads rivers sea-coast &c. actually surveyed* (1724) by John Warburton, Joseph Bland and Payler Smyth.

*A map of the county of Essex: by a new survey …* (1696) performed by John Oliver [1947 facsimile]

At first, these the Johnny-come-latelys were slow, inconvenient and rare but as they became faster, accommodating and common they were also, increasingly, not friendly fellow travellers but road-hogs claiming the highway as their own.

Today, both the walker and the rider on these roads finds themselves unwelcome and endangered on the very ways that their forebears chose and formed. What are they doing on the road!?!?!?! cries the driver.

As Kenneth Grahame described in The Wind in the Willows (1908):

“They were strolling along the high-road easily, the Mole by the horse’s head, talking to him, since the horse had complained that he was being frightfully left out of it, and nobody considered him in the least; the Toad and the Water Rat walking behind the cart talking together–at least Toad was talking, and Rat was saying at intervals, ‘Yes, precisely; and what did YOU say to HIM?’–and thinking all the time of something very different, when far behind them they heard a faint warning hum; like the drone of a distant bee. Glancing back, they saw a small cloud of dust, with a dark centre of energy, advancing on them at incredible speed, while from out the dust a faint ‘Poop-poop!’ wailed like an uneasy animal in pain. Hardly regarding it, they turned to resume their conversation, when in an instant (as it seemed) the peaceful scene was changed, and with a blast of wind and a whirl of sound that made them jump for the nearest ditch, It was on them! The ‘Poop-poop’ rang with a brazen shout in their ears, they had a moment’s glimpse of an interior of glittering plate-glass and rich morocco, and the magnificent motor-car, immense, breath-snatching, passionate, with its pilot tense and hugging his wheel, possessed all earth and air for the fraction of a second, flung an enveloping cloud of dust that blinded and enwrapped them utterly, and then dwindled to a speck in the far distance, changed back into a droning bee once more.

The old grey horse, dreaming, as he plodded along, of his quiet paddock, in a new raw situation such as this simply abandoned himself to his natural emotions. Rearing, plunging, backing steadily, in spite of all the Mole’s efforts at his head, and all the Mole’s lively language directed at his better feelings, he drove the cart backwards towards the deep ditch at the side of the road. It wavered an instant–then there was a heartrending crash–and the canary-coloured cart, their pride and their joy, lay on its side in the ditch, an irredeemable wreck.

The Rat danced up and down in the road, simply transported with passion. ‘You villains!’ he shouted, shaking both fists, ‘You scoundrels, you highwaymen, you–you–roadhogs!–I’ll have the law of you! I’ll report you! I’ll take you through all the Courts!’ “

Drivers on the Dengie are victims of car dependence themselves. Where are their mobility options? Where is their freedom to choose their form of transportation? How can they escape the traffic to which they contribute? Why must they be bound to the expense and upkeep of a private vehicle? How are they to be protected from dangerous drivers, from speed limits that are not set at safe levels?

Providing mobility freedom, making our roads safer and calmer, and making a fairer use of our route network all require investment in, and attention to, active and public transport. We need to rECOnnect Dengie

“You knew it must come to this, sooner or later, Toad,” the Badger explained severely. “You’ve disregarded all the warnings we’ve given you, you’ve gone on squandering the money your father left you, and you’re getting us animals a bad name in the district by your furious driving and your smashes and your rows with the police. Independence is all very well, but we animals never allow our friends to make fools of themselves beyond a certain limit; and that limit you’ve reached. Now, you’re a good fellow in many respects, and I don’t want to be too hard on you. I’ll make one more effort to bring you to reason.”

‘Swaggering Down the Steps’ by EH Shepard

The Lost Words

November 7, 2025November 7, 2025 James Piers TaylorLeave a comment

By national government edict the 15 councils in ‘Greater Essex’ must reorganise to form new unitary authorities through a process of Local Government Reorganisation. This will change the current two-level council system into one in which there are new, bigger councils called unitary councils.

I’ve been reviewing the four competing proposals submitted by existing councils as to how that reorganisation should take shape. (They’re all published here). They divide Essex into 3,4 or 5 new unitary authorities:

*Three unitary council proposal [3]
*Four unitary council proposal (led by Thurrock) [4T]
*Four unitary council proposal (led by Rochford) [4R]
*Five unitary council proposal [5]

(in square brackets I’ve added a number used in the figures below)

There are several hundred pages to go through here (874 pages to be precise), so I’ve done a bit of barefoot textual analysis as a first attempt to see what they have to say about the climate and nature emergencies.

My quick and dirty approach was to quantify how many times some key words and phrases related to these issues appear in the respective documents. I chose words to search for that are either words ordinary people might use or they are part of the common lexicon used by governments, NGOs and the climate movement. I began with general terms.

It’s pretty clear that the old favourite ‘sustainability’ is out of favour. That word and sustainable or unsustainable feature often across the documents – 502 times in fact – but very rarely in an ecological context. Only 22 instances of the words relate to ecological sustainability or bear any relationship to the famous definition of “sustainable development” in Our Common Future: ‘Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.’ The words are used primarily as part of the phrase ‘financial sustainability’.

Words derived from the root ecology – ecology itself, ecological, ecologist etc, are almost entirely absent, appearing once each in two of the documents. The contraction ‘eco’ does not appear at all,

The favoured words are clearly ‘environment/al’ and ‘green’ which feature much more often – and to be fair are terms that ordinary people will commonly use. It’s probably worth noting that 45.6% of the times that the word ‘green’ appears in an ecological context it is within the phrase ‘green belt’ (68.6% in the Three unitary council proposal and 65.2% in the Four unitary council proposal (led by Rochford))

Turning to the climate emergency declared by the UK parliament in May 2019, I looked for where these documents referred to the climate and the national legal commitment to decarbonising all sectors of the UK economy to meet our net zero target by 2050. The phrase ‘climate change’ appears only 7 times across all four documents, ‘net zero’ appears 8 times (and is completely absent from the Four unitary council proposal (led by Rochford)). Decarbonisation also appears 8 times but is completely absent from both the Four unitary council proposal (led by Thurrock) and the Four unitary council proposal (led by Rochford). The word ’emission/s’ appears twice in the Three unitary council proposal but nowhere else. ‘Low carbon’ appears once a piece in the Three unitary council proposal and the Four unitary council proposal (led by Rochford) but not at all in the other two. ‘Zero carbon’ appears in none of them.

What then of the ecological emergency? England is ‘widely considered to be one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world following historic and ongoing declines. Government has made legally-binding commitments to end these declines and for nature to recover‘. Essex County Council is one of the responsible authorities delegated to prepare a Local Nature Recovery Strategy [LNRS] designed to: deliver the necessary action to reverse the current path of decline in our biodiversity; and, bring about a recovery for nature. Essex published its LNRS in July this year.

The phrase ‘nature recovery’ only appears in the Three unitary council proposal. This proposal was made by Essex County Council and the absence of ‘nature recovery’ in all the others perhaps indicates a failure to fully engage the other authorities in the county with this task.

Despite the new planning mandates for ‘biodiversity net gain’, the words biodiversity or biodiverse barely appear. The commonly recognisable terms ‘conservation’ and ‘wildlife’ are fewer and far between.

Domestic transport is the largest source of emissions in the UK, accounting for 29.1% of greenhouse gas emissions in 2023. The largest source of emissions from UK transport is road vehicles, which includes passenger cars and freight vehicles using petrol and diesel. Addressing this is key to a lower carbon future and one of the reasons I’m trying to rECOnnect Dengie. What do these proposals have to say about sustainable transport? Two of them don’t use the phrase.

‘Public transport’, ‘bus/buses’, and ‘electric’ [vehicles], are all missing from the Three unitary council proposal and the Four unitary council proposal (led by Rochford). The Three unitary council proposal is particularly lacking in this area with no mentions of ‘sustainable transport’, ‘public transport’, ‘bus/buses’, ‘electric vehicles’, ‘walk/walking/walker(s)’ or of ‘cycle(s)/cycling’. The amount of attention apparently given to this area by the the Four unitary council proposal (led by Rochford) is also deceptive as many of these words appear primarily in summaries of public responses to surveys saying what they would like rather than any clear strategy to deliver them (see slides below).

*A couple of slides from the* Four unitary council proposal (led by Rochford) *with the public’s transport issues*

On the topic of clean/renewable energy there’s a bit more attention, but still surprisingly little on some of the keys areas in which we need to act to reduce carbon emissions.

Concerning waste there’s very little, especially in the key areas of reduction and reuse. It’s good to see some nods to the ‘circular economy’ but the county still seems to be celebrating ending landfill by burning rubbish rather than anything more transformative. Despite the massive public outcry against shit in the river and the pollution of our watercourses, none of the proposals dare say ‘sewage’.

The less we mitigate climate change, the more risks we will face and the greater adaptation we will need to make. There’s not much about this in these forward looking documents and some risks get more attention than others.

As I said at the start this is a quick and dirty analysis – adding up the numbers here won’t tell you which proposal is best – you still need to read the documents and work that out for yourself. More of these words appear in the Three unitary council proposal (279) than any other, the fewest appear in the Four unitary council proposal (led by Thurrock) (189) – but more isn’t necessarily better. A lot of good words have been written in various documents over the years – but what matters is what actually happens not the words.

Stitching the Path: Connecting Disjointed Walk & Cycle Routes 1

October 20, 2025October 20, 2025 James Piers TaylorLeave a comment

A mission objective of the rECOnnect Dengie project is to improve the active travel infrastructure on the Dengie and get a safe network of routes connecting all the settlements. As I’ve noted previously, there are lots of good words about achieving this sort of thing in the strategy documents produced from the national level down to the parish – but what happens next? How does it happen?

This in the first in a series of posts where I’ll look at where there are opportunities on the Dengie to connect up existing routes and how we might turn document objectives into objective fact. I’m starting close to home in Burnham-on-Crouch.

The Burnham-on-Crouch Neighbourhood Development Plan [pdf](2017) expressed a clear desire for better active travel infrastructure:

‘5.3 Make Burnham-on-Crouch a More Pedestrian and Cycle Friendly Place to Live

The Town should have a friendlier environment for cycling and walking. Its main and secondary roads are dominated by vehicles. New pedestrian and cycle routes should be provided that link the town centre with existing and new neighbourhoods, schools and recreation areas via quieter roads.’

It substantiates this objective with policies including:

One of the first new neighbourhoods created after the NDP is the Grangewood Park estate which was built on agricultural land allocated for new housing as Site S2 (j) in the Maldon District Local Development Plan [pdf]. A site with a long southern boundary to the town’s Secondary School, the Ormiston Rivers Academy.

*Figure 12 in the Burnham NDP (Apologies for poor image quality, this is as it appears online)*

The masterplan [pdf] presented by developers Charles Church in their planning application included a new off-road foot/cycle path running through the green space on the estate and providing a connection from Southminster Road in the east to Green Lane in the north.

Their document notes that the Maldon LDP includes:

‘T2 Transport Infrastructure in New Developments The layout of new developments should provide for safe access to and from the highway including… links to adjacent or nearby foot/cycle path network’

and that it states that amongst the criteria any proposed development must satisfy is:

‘Safe pedestrian and cycle linkages are provided from the development to the town centre, other public service facilities and the existing urban area’.

(The Residential Travel Plan [pdf] supplied in the developer’s application noted that ‘[t]here are no dedicated cycle facilities in the vicinity of the development site’)

Later the planning application notes that ‘[t]he Burnham Neighbourhood Plan shows proposed cycle links that the Town would like to see progressed; within this diagram a possible link is shown into the site subject to this application. The provision of this link would rely on third party land and therefore cannot be provided by Charles Church, however the scheme has been developed to facilitate future connectivity.’

It’s unclear exactly what this is referring to, as the Burnham NDP includes text references to possible cycle routes but no maps showing these. The diagram with ‘a possible link’ is perhaps the green dotted line ‘new pedestrian route’ shown in the NDP’s ‘Figure 12’ (copied above) connecting the site to Maldon Road in the south, and running along the western boundary of Ormiston Rivers’s playing fields. This would have been a convenient addition to Burnham’s walk/wheel/cycle routes but it never materialised and it illustrates succinctly a key unaddressed problem in getting better active travel infrastructure.

i.e A government strategy proposes active travel infrastructure as an essential part of new developments, a developer provides infrastructure within the development – but the value of such infrastructure is largely produced by a larger connectivity that neither government nor developer is providing.

The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) make enough noises about pedestrian and cycle routes that applications for new housing tend to include vague promises about including them. On the ground this tends to result in intra-estate pathways that have genuine utility but terminate at the estates’ boundaries with no clear sense of how onward travel on foot, mobility device or bicycle might proceed.

*Foot/cycle paths shown in grey to the north of the housing* *on Grangewood Park estate*

True to their promise, the developers of Grangewood Park delivered the walk/cycle path on their masterplan and the estate includes what is, currently, the best example of active travel infrastructure in the town with an off-road path that connects Southminster Road with Green Lane – but what happens when you get to Southminster Road or Green Lane? What contribution does it make to a safe, active travel network?

At Southminster Road (B1021) the pathway ends 160 metres north of the entrance to Ormiston Rivers school. A child on a bicycle coming through Grangewood Park must now leave the off-road cycle path, cross a lane of northbound traffic leaving town on the B1021, and join the southbound lane – before turning across the path of northbound traffic again to complete their journey to school. Opposite the Grangewood junction there’s a road sign with the red triangle warning of a school ahead and, beneath it, one of those advisory-only ’20’s Plenty’ signs – but the B1021 has a 30mph speed limit at this point and has limited direct access along this section, a form that tends to encourage vehicle speeds in excess of the legal limit. The common experience of cyclists, of all ages, using this road is driver impatience and an aggressive eagerness to pass.

Meanwhile, pedestrians leaving the off-road path at Southminster Road find there is no footway providing an onward walking route north or south. There is a narrow pavement on the east side of Southminster Road but there is no controlled crossing to reach it (a small traffic island provides some pedestrian refuge).

*School children cross the B1021 to reach the Grangewood Park Estate.*

*The junction of Grangewood Park Avenue and Southminster Road, where the foot/cycle path ends*

Once the road is crossed, a pedestrian can proceed south on pavement into Burnham. If it’s a child walking to the school they can pass the school entrance on the other side of the road and carry on further south around a bend to cross the road at a zebra crossing, then walk north again up the opposite pavement to reach the school entrance – a distance of 450m. Will they do that though? Of course not!, once they are opposite the school entrance our cyclist used – 160m down, they’ll do what she did and cross the road there. The curve of the road means that drivers travelling south will be blind to a child crossing the road there until they are quite close. The Highway Code calculates the stopping distance of an average car at 30mph in dry conditions to be 23 metres.

*Looking north up Southminster Road where a child is liable to cross* *to reach the school*

*Car stopping distances in the* Highway Code

‘But there’s no alternative!’ I hear you cry, ‘you just have to make do with what you’ve got’.

‘I know this estate is right next to the secondary school and we agreed in the neighbourhood plan to “plan, build and highlight clearly signposted, direct and safe cycle and pedestrian routes into the Town from new and existing neighbourhoods, between all schools and the town centre” and we agreed that we would “improve the pedestrian and cycle journeys to/from each of the schools” – but really what else could we have done?

Let me tell you!

Grangewood Park shares a border with Ormiston Rivers school, their frontage to Southminster Road is contiguous. The foot/cycle path could have gone over Grangewood Park Avenue and continued south over amenity land to the boundary of the school and through the small woodland which separates it from the paved area of the school grounds.

*The red line indicates where the Grangewood path could be connected to Ormiston school, the blue line how that could continue to the existing footway*

All the land involved either belongs to the developer or to Essex County Council. The developer was on-board with facilitating connectivity, the Town and District Councils wanted connectivity, Essex County Council/Essex Highways wants kids to cycle to school. It should have happened… and it still can!

The current residents of the three houses on Grangewood Park estate facing Southminster Road might prefer the current area of mown grass and small flower bed, but they’d benefit from a walk/cycle/wheel route through it. Improving active travel routes is beneficial for everyone, not just children.

This missing link would facilitate footway access from Burnham’s riverside, urban centre and railway station through to Green Lane by reducing the number of necessary road crossings. It would complete a safe cycle route from the Grangewood Park estate to Ormiston school.

EXTRA CREDIT: The pavement going south from Ormiston School has an area of verge and is wide enough to allow a shared foot/cycle way to the junction with Maldon Road (B1010). Across the B1010 junction, in the northbound lane, there is also Burnham’s oldest piece of cycling infrastructure – a painted cycle lane that begins just south of it and finishes quickly north of it – it’s of spurious utility but nevertheless could easily merge into a cycleway on the west of Southminster Road and gain a connectivity it has never had before!

What happens at the other end of the Grangewood Park estate foot/cycle path though? Can we get anywhere from there? Look out for Stitching the Path: Connecting Disjointed Walk & Cycle Routes 2 – where I will address these very questions!

Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?

May 2, 2025May 2, 2025 James Piers TaylorLeave a comment

A couple of days ago, Essex Highways released a press release about their plans for rolling out electric vehicle charging in the county, and used the opportunity to ask people where they thought the chargers should go. Their survey is pretty minimal, but there was enough in it to raise my concern.

I’ve long been frustrated by the pavement parking of cars and how temporary road signs are placed on the footway rather than on the road they relate to. Cars already dominate urban space. In the rural town where I live, especially in the older parts built before the automobile, the streets are cluttered with private vehicles. The nearest pavement to my house is unusable – cars park on its full width to allow free access to vehicles on the road, so pedestrians have to walk on the road too. One of my neighbours has an EV, and the charging cable stretches from his boundary wall across the street to his car.

There’s a sci-fi saw, often attributed to Frederik Pohl, that ‘a good science fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam’. You don’t have to be a futurist to see the trip hazard in the electric car rollout. Motornormativity —the assumption that car-centric infrastructure is the default—demands that any new space requirements for the automobile be carved from the realm beyond the car. When Essex Highways asked ‘where should the chargers go?’, the assumption is clearly that the person being asked is a motorist, an EV owner seeking on-street charging for their machine. The ‘where’ is not ‘where in the public realm, if anywhere, should we put this new chunk of motorcar infrastructure’, but ‘which streets shall we impose this pile of gubbins in?

Continue reading →

Better Walk/Wheel/Cycle Routes

March 13, 2025March 13, 2025 James Piers TaylorLeave a comment

Next week, work commences on a solar farm south of Keelings Road, Dengie.

This will involve constructing an access road from Keelings Road to Asheldham Brook, which could be made suitable for cycle access.

From Asheldham Brook it’s only 2km to The Marshes, Southminster through land (Northwycke Farm) with a single owner: Lincoln College, Oxford.

Continue reading →

Weeknotes 02025 Q1 W8

March 2, 2025 James Piers TaylorLeave a comment

DCAP

Monday. I feared devolution in Essex would derail strategic planning on climate issues

That seems to be proving true with the new Transport Strategy for Essex (LTP4) which was set to reflect county and national policy commitments to transport decarbonisation and better provision of sustainable transport and active travel infrastructure.

Public consultation on the draft Transport Strategy for Essex (LTP4) & the programme of planned investment in different parts of Essex was scheduled for Winter 24/25 – with adoption of the new strategy in Spring 2025.

I recently sought confirmation of calendar dates for the Essex Transport Strategy and received the dispiriting reply that devolution was causing the timetable to be revised….

Today I have written to ECC Cllrs Fleming and Stamp who represent the Dengie, and to cabinet member and ‘climate czar’ Peter Schweir seeking answers to these questions:

When will the decision regarding further public consultation and timelines be made?
Can they confirm that Essex County Council remains committed to formally adopting LTP4 in 2025?

Tuesday – Cllr Schweir replied first but just said he would ask the officers – not very satisfactory as I had already forwarded him my reply from officers which noted that it was a member’s decision… . Cllr Fleming sent a reply saying she would try to find out. No reply fro Cllr Stamp

The Maldon & Burnham Standard featured a news story about 20mph speed limits for the new estates in Burnham-on-Crouch. I’d already heard it mentioned at the last council meeting, but there and on FB there were many comments on how it would be policed – the same way all speed limits are policed, I presume?

Thursday. I published the first promo for next week’s monthly meet and the associated River Watch talk.

Tree distribution, some of the saplings went to St Andrews’ Althorne. They are planning a wildlife-friendly church ground with Essex Wildlife Trust

Thursday. There was too much interest in DCAP, again, from Burnham Town Council – and it is difficult not to sense malicious intent. Parish/town councils are a strange level of government. They have very little power or influence and they are the easiest positions to get (many join them through co-option or uncontested elections). Yet, post-holders can sometimes seem possessed by a sense of status and authority far removed from their actual position as unpaid servants of the people with very little clout. It should be a noble role, but easily descend into busy-bodydom.

Friday. The new woodland and food forest in St Lawrence made the local paper.

Day Job

1to1 with my line manager – all is good there for now.

Friday – the weekly corporate missive informs staff that we now have a balanced budget for 2025/26 but that the UK Government’s Spending Review Phase 2 for 2026+ is ongoing and “until concluded we still have uncertainty for beyond 2025/26”. It doesn’t look like we got a good slice of the Arts Everywhere Fund. So, along with the uncertainty comes some fear and doubt. The UK finances and Rachel Reeves’s fiscal rules already look set for a collision course before Starmer started pledging billions for Ukraine. We’re still dependent on a government grant coming through an unprotected department, so when April 2026 comes around I imagine some cutbacks will swiftly follow. HR are already asking if folk want to buy some more leave days.

Everyday Life

At some point this week I went under the 600 days threshold on the plan that cannot be named.

Tuesday. The sound of a chainsaw outside this morning, another local tree taken. Our borrowed landscape has declined a lot over the last few years – soft organic form replaced by the hard lines of fencing, brickwork and concrete. In the evening though, just after sunset, I saw a large dog fox leap over a nearby fence and wander around the gardens – all while one of my neighbours practiced playing ‘Wild Thing’ on electric guitar.

Wednesday. Dental hygienist – this is my only interface with private healthcare, and the bill is sufficient to warrant full communism.

Wednesday. I went to a talk by Michael Head at the Royal Corinthian Yacht Club on the last 125 years of Dengie Hundred Farming. These local history talks are frequently very different from the type of academic presentation I’m more used to – and this was one of those – a slideshow of re-photographed old postcards and personal snaps presented alongside anecdotes, jokes and lists of things you might not know about cows. The room was full to the gunwales. Many in the audience were clearly from the farming community and some were referenced or specifically called out to; others were quick to shout out corrections and clarifications: “That’s a pea-spreader!!”

The room was hot from the crowd and the chairs were placed tight against one another which added to the discomfort when laughter accompanied mentions of immigrants or gypsies and cheers were raised at the sight of huntsmen in their finery with accompanying calls to ‘bring it back’.

Many of the photos were great, but I didn’t learn much about the last 125 years of Dengie Hundred Farming – the audience was assumed to know the details, and to recognise the names of people and farms mentioned in passing. I wanted to hear about things like: how the world wars had changed agricultural practice on the Dengie, about local mechanisation and the introduction of chemical Ag, about how the land was altered about the ’53 floods and how the old creeks were filled in and replaced with new straight ditches, about the amalgamation of small farms into fewer larger holdings, about the formation of the Dengie Crops co-operative. I didn’t get any of that, but there were little stories and references you wouldn’t get elsewhere which made it worthwhile nonetheless. I was acutely aware that the talk wasn’t being recorded and that a lot of what was heard but not retained will probably die with the tale teller.

Friday

Saturday. We had our Home Energy Assessment and we now await the report (mid-March was mentioned for delivery). From things the pair of assesors said while they were here I’m not optimistic I’m going to learn much, if anything, I don’t know already – despite the pre-visit written survey I filled in it was apparently news to them that the house was Grade II listed – and there didn’t seem to be in expertise in crafting solutions particular to that need. We won this assessment in a competition, apparently it would normally cost £500 – frankly I’d expect more for that money, but let’s see the report I suppose.

I have larger concerns about the national programme of transitioning the UK housing stock to sustainability. At every level: data collection, analysis, proposed changes – information seems to be drawn from off-the-shelf lists rather than from any understanding of the particularities of the nation’s varied housing stock. If your house was built in the last 40 years and has an EPC certificate, they can easily tickbox through – increase loft insulation to 300mm, solar PV and battery, air-source heat pump, smart thermostat, TRV’s on the rads etc. But the UK’s housing stock is among the oldest in Europe. Our home is among the 15% of houses in England built before 1900 and 78% of homes in the UK were built before 1980. As ONS analysis shows that the age of a property is the most significant factor associated with energy efficiency (ahead of both fuel type and property type), finding bespoke solutions for the housing stock we actually have is more important than blanket applying some set of heuristics.

Saturday. C and I went to the Beecroft Gallery in Southend for the opening of 2 exhibitions – the interim TOMA show and ‘Into the Zone’. Apparently the Southend mayor, Ron Woodley, was in the building but he remained unseen, which was disappointing for those hoping for a face-to-face encounter between him and artist/TOMA leader Emma Edmondson. Woodley has been an eager voice in local philistinism and apparently once threatened to drive into one of Edmondson’s public sculptures

Into the Zone with its Estuary focus resonated with many of my interests and concerns. I was frustrated with the explicit referencing of the Zone from Tarkovsky’s Stalker, though which felt like borrowed glory. Stalker is now one of those overdone culture reference points like the ‘the liminal’, folk horror, standing stones, Sebald’s Rings of Saturn, psychogeography, fungal networks – that have become bland touchstones fully drained of their magick by the Arts and Humanities departments.

Media

White Lotus S03E01
Severance S02E06

Music

Online

‘You can rattle the bars of the cage as fiercely as you like but you will never actually escape the comfort of the zoo’ – James Marriott in The Times, ‘Conspiracists are about to get a dose of reality‘

‘from here on out, for any player smaller than a state or a multinational, adaptation is pretty much the only game in town worth playing, because it’s the only one that people on the ground are actually gonna notice.’ Paul Graham Raven Drill, Baby, Drill

Future Thinking and Dreaming