Lord (Chris) Smith, of Finsbury and the Environment Agency, has been mis-informed!

There is an extraordinary article in the Daily Telegraph describing the visit of Lord (Chris) Smith of Finsbury and the Environment Agency to Wicken Fen. Lord Smith is said to have 'insisted only poor farmland will be flooded.'

The article is to be found at -

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/7138281/Wetlands-to-be-recreated-in-England.html

and I have fired off a letter (headed 'His Lordship has been mis-informed') to the editor as follows:

"Dear Sir,

I see that Lord (Chris) Smith of Finsbury and of the Environment Agency, whilst visiting Wicken Fen for World Wetlands Day, 'insisted only poor farmland will be flooded.' His Lordship has been misinformed, presumably by the National Trust, promoters of the so-called 'Wicken Vision.' The Fen lands in and near the ancient Fen-edge settlements of Wicken, Upware, Burwell, Reach, Swaffham Prior, Swaffham Bulbeck, Lode & Longmeadow, Bottisham, Stow cum Quy, Fen Ditton, Horningsea and Waterbeach are mostly Grade 1 and are, therefore, the best food-growing farm land in the kingdom. It is just too awful for the Trust to be letting such land go to water-logged rack and ruin and covered with elder bushes, ragwort, stinging nettles, and thistles.

Yours faithfully,

Geoffrey Woollard."