I hoped it would be a David and Goliath story – big national developers, small local community, the community wins, the developers leave town. Instead, the application for almost 300 uninspired and loveless houses passed despite concerns over affordability, wildlife enhancement, and lack of green infrastructure. As an elected District Councillor, I spoke my concerns alongside residents. Some improvements were made, but the story is now a familiar one: the planning committee recognised the concerns, but felt their hands were tied – if they refused permission, the wealthy developer would appeal, and probably win, and our District Council would have to pay costs from its ever-dwindling budget.
Developers are invested financially in a place, but not relationally or ecologically. The land becomes a blank canvas; the otters, oaks and fertile soils are an inconvenience which can be replaced with some token tree planting and bat boxes afterwards, in the name of ‘development’ (a slippery idea that is often interpreted as profit rather than value). The layers of the place – of farming and memory, of community and care and stories through seasons – are invisible to distant developers, but not to those who have eyes to see.
I have been trying to see the layers in these Devon lands where the soils are red, and where the farmers are still “buried deep in their valleys, in undateable cob-walled farms…connected by the inexplicable, Devonshire high-banked, deep-cut lanes…” as poet Ted Hughes observed. Unearthing the layers of a place can lead to topophilia – a bond we feel with its emotion, memory, geography, heritage. I’ve felt pulled instantly to places before – Scottish islands, Zambian savannahs (the pull to Zambia eventually led me to live and work there, and now I feel folded into its red soils just as I am into the red soils of Devon). But I think topophilia is different, more gradual, a slow intertwining of roots as a place becomes known to us. Whether instant pull or slow-burning topophilia, I’ve been thinking about place, and why it matters.