The National Trust, BAM Nuttall and the madness of what is going on in our Cambridgeshire Fens

After last night's meeting at Ely, I chatted with Mr Richard Bamford, the highly-respected local solicitor who has been the Clerk to the Swaffham Internal Drainage Board. Richard knows of what he speaks and said that he was pleased that I had brought up the madness of what is going on in our Fens.

The madness is the National Trust buying up, partially flooding and effectively ruining thousands of acres of the best food-producing land in the kingdom. As part of what the Trust is doing, a huge bridge is being constructed over Reach Lode (the one in which County and District Councillor Mr Bill Hunt nearly drowned in on Sunday). Today, I spotted a digger at work on the corner of Headlake Drove, the route to the site of the bridge. The digger was dealing with large quantities of rubble-like material and I asked the driver what was going on. The answer that he gave me confirmed what I suspected, namely, that Headlake Drove is being widened and strengthened so that a 500-tonne crane can get along it in order to hoist the bridge into place. The work is being done by BAM Nuttall, the firm that has made an embarrassing horlicks of the Cambridge guided busway.

To my mind, and to the minds of many of those of who know and care about the Fens and our country's food-producing capabilities, this is madness - and costly to boot. To others who don't know and don't care, I say, 'Wait until food rationing returns and you will then find out that home food production is vital for our ever-growing population.'

Here are two pictures of what I saw today.