LETTER: What is going on with Littlewood Lane?

The reason for the temporary closure of this footpath and bridleway was given on the public notice as work on electric cables.

Imagine my surprise on my first walk down this re-opened path to find a large and ugly solar farm where once there were green fields.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m one of the world’s most ardent advocates for this clean, free and perpetual power source that we have wasted for so many years, but let’s put things in proper perspective. The right place for a solar farm, or as I term it a solar band, is between the lines of the tropics on land that is often arid desert. A power source to the benefit of every person on the planet and owned by every person that lives there, not some big corporation.

In this country we can do our little bit with solar panels on roofs, but surely not on land that can feed us. Ask yourself how much your electric bill has fallen and you realise that solar farms and those damn wind turbines may be a good little earner for a few, but are of little benefit to the vast majority of us.

Getting back to Littlewood Lane, I also noticed the path had been bulldozed and surfaced with cinder and hardcore and that Midland Landfill had used the opportunity of the path closure to install a second set of metal gates to its second quarry in the area.

I may be wrong, but I suspect that Littlewood Lane will be closed again in the near future to allow Midland Landfill to move their operations into this second quarry.

Given the way in which this path has just been closed, with, to my mind no mention of the intended solar farm and no alternative route provided, can I ask someone from Notts County Council, preferably my elected representative, if this is the case? is it a foregone conclusion that the path will then be closed despite any objections? How many years will it be closed and which political party granted permission for these two quarries in an area of outstanding natural beauty?

Brian Betts

Shakespeare Avenue,

Mansfield Woodhouse