It’s now something of a habit that whenever I meet up with my daughter, I manage to embarrass her by complaining to someone, usually a waiter or waitress, about the quality of something in a cafe, restaurant or some other public place. Last time it was a breakfast menu which said “an array of pastries”, which my daughter ordered, to be presented with a single pastry. I complained to the Italian/Russian waitress, who exclaimed, “Oh! No one has ever complained about that before!” Everyone in the room looked at us. Daughter looked down at her plate, embarrassed. I probably turned red too. Well, I said, it says an array, which implies many, and there’s only one. It’s not going to fill anyone up. She got two more pastries (she still wasn’t full and had be bought another breakfast half an hour later – elsewhere). Life went on. It’s good to complain. As the world gets worse, I’m doing it more. Well, we’re asked for our feedback constantly nowadays. Here’s three recent emails.

TO CORNWALL COUNCIL
Hi Planning and Forest for Cornwall
Let me introduce you to each other!

I live in the Redruth/Carn Brea area. Whenever I go for a walk around the mining trails, I see some more land has been fenced up, boarded up or destroyed. This time it was the trees. Along the mining path that runs roughly parallel between Dudnance Lane and Carn Brea (couldn’t find its exact name, if it has one), I noticed hundreds of trees had been chopped down, the small woodlands I’d noticed before which were abundant with trees were now threadbare (some of this, which I’ve also noticed elsewhere in the county, was due to new telegraph poles being installed – but really, the area all around them looks like a ton of napalm has been dropped. Surely this much destruction is unwarranted, or how about putting the telegraph poles elsewhere?).

Your Forest for Cornwall project is deeply flawed. You can't go around chopping down mature trees, expecting newly planted ones to take their place. It takes 100 years for a woodland to reach maturity.

From the saplings I’ve seen (specifically, along Kerrier Way), they have not been cared for since being planted. They are being suffocated in their horrible plastic tubes. Most look battered or dead. Trees did fine for billions of years without plastic tubes. The so-called mycorrhizal networks will presumably not operate with your roadside saplings (without similar, more mature trees nearby).

Wanton destruction in the name of car parks has occurred opposite Heartlands next to a hideous new supermarket, where another small woodland was destroyed, on the college grounds. Was the local populace consulted on the supermarket, or with McDonald’s, KFC, Subway and other horrible outlets I will never visit, you just want to send the already-obese locals into an even earlier grave? If even these kinds of companies supported the local economy, but did you know at least 60% of profit from places like this (Costa, McDonald’s etc) immediately leave the local area? Aside from the fact that places like McDonald’s are contributing to the destruction of the rain forests.

Anyway, I diverge (the above is for the Planning department, but one day you will realise IT IS ALL CONNECTED).

YOU ARE TURNING ALL THE NATURAL LAND INTO CAR PARKS, RETAIL PARKS, CAR SHOWROOMS AND HOUSING. EVERY DAY BIT BY BIT YOU ARE DESTROYING THE NATURAL HABITAT OF WILDLIFE. YOU ARE PREVENTING BIODIVERSITY. YOU ARE TRYING TO CONTROL NATURE AND IT DOESN'T NEED OR WANT CONTROLLING.

Now, let me explain about your so-called Climate Emergency:
TREES ARE PART OF THE EQUATION;
CHOPPING THEM DOWN ISN’T.
CARS AND CAR PARKS AREN'T.
A SPACE STATION ISN’T.
A HELIPORT ISN’T.

I’m not sure how to make it clearer. But you are managing to get planning completely wrong on a daily basis – or can't see how your decisions impact on wildlife. We don't need more car parks. We don’t need new retail parks (with high streets simultaneously being decimated). We don’t need new houses (the shortage is a myth – look at all the empty houses, buildings, offices, factories in the UK), we certainly don’t need junk food outlets in deprived areas. Litter and fly tipping is everywhere in the area. On verges, in fields, in hedgerows. Plastic bottles, cans, nothing seems to get ever picked up.

This was only about the trees but I’m on a roll now.

My last complaint is concerning the St Austell ‘eco village’, whose name has changed to ‘garden village’, someone at the Eden Project informed me; presumably because there is nothing remotely ‘eco’ about it. I realise these are countrywide schemes requested by the government. However, choosing a site with abundant trees, foliage and wildlife, a haven for birds and a popular location for dog walkers is crazy. I had often climbed over the fence and enjoyed tranquil times watching birds flying over the lakes. I felt like I was in another world, all alone. Now when I pass by I see hundreds of trees and bushes destroyed.
The thing about humans, and small-minded, small-sighted councils in particular, is a compulsion TO DO STUFF. ALL THE TIME. In the case of nature, IT DOES IT ON ITS OWN. It wants to be left alone, it doesn't want you interfering. Or culling badgers or building roads or car parks or crappy houses or unhealthy supermarkets or destroying hedgerows – all these things prevent the growth of biodiversity and destroy what little natural habitat they have left.

TO FIRST BUS, CORNWALL
The price of bus journeys in Cornwall is EXTORTIONATE* (you know it’s so when the bus driver apologises for a five mile journey costing almost a tenner). Let’s take one of the poorest counties in EUROPE and have the buses three times more expensive than its wealthier neightbour, Devon (where an hour long journey has cost me £4), and five times more expensive than London (all journeys £1.50). Then let’s have the buses turn up LATE once an hour, stop at every stop for five minutes, presumably to even out the journey but leading to frustration for all on board. Let’s have the rail fares at least half the price of the buses. Let’s also say cycling is always quicker than the bus, and walking is sometimes quicker. Let’s chuck in a climate crisis as well, and a half-baked attempt to get people to use public transport more – not with the service or prices you provide. To cap it all, let’s only have one set of doors on the buses.

*I’m talking single or return fares, I realise the weekly/monthly pass works out good value if you use the service every day.

TO THE EDEN PROJECT
My first letter of complaint had been hand-written on the complaint form at the Eden Project, mainly about the food being wasted there. Someone replied via email. I wrote back to them.

Perhaps try giving away the fruit and veg to the deprived of St Austell. Charity begins at home and all that. I’ve also seen staff throw leftover sandwiches in the compost bin at the end of the day. Better than recycling or composting is reusing and eating.

I see St Austell's ‘eco’ village, presumably inspired by yourselves, is well underway. I can tell because they've destroyed hundreds of trees, foliage and habitats for animals and birds. Progress, huh?

I almost feel bad criticising a charity when there are so many other evil organisations to target, but there’s something deeply unfulfilling about the place, and a golden opportunity missed in these terrible times. And it’s insane that your car parks are bigger than the actual Eden Project!

Previously on Barnflakes
Bus pass
Success and failures of the Eden Project
Abandoned Halloween Pumpkins
The China Clay pits around St Austell
Reviving Reduth (and environs)