Barton news

We have a problem that is specific to life in the countryside – ever larger tractors and associated machinery on country lanes.  I appreciate that living in the country brings privileges, especially under Covid-19 lockdown, when we have been able to walk out of our garden and not meet many, if any, people.   However, when we, our dogs, the verges and roadside walls are threatened by high speed tractors and trailers weighing tons, there is a time to speak out.   Our lane was built for traffic that consisted of a horse and cart and many rural roads across the UK are just the same.   The mechanisation revolution in agriculture that started around the Second World War still continues.   With ever fewer people working on farms, the technological answer has been to develop larger and larger and ever more powerful machinery.   The larger the tractor, the less time it takes to work a field.   This brings time efficiency, but at what cost?   More and mor...

Is Covid-19 in North Somerset climbing again? The way the number of daily cases reported on https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ for England was changed on the 2 July to include all the corona virus testing from independent and other testing (so-called Pillar 1 and 2).  The adjustment in the total number of cases indicated initially that the number of new cases continued in North Somerset at roughly one new case every other day for the month from mid-June (data points in yellow and blue).  There was an adjustment to the data on 19 July because of double counting.  Since then the data shown in green has a worrying increase in case numbers, up to 1.2 new cases per day in North Somerset.  There is only a week’s worth of data, so may be the rate will drop back, but as lockdown is now easing, we need to be careful.  Covid-19 has not gone away and could be increasing.   For the record, the data from Bristol indicates a steady increase in case numbers, averaging 1.5 c...

The really good news is that the number of daily cases reported on https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ for North Somerset has reduced markedly – see below.  A little over a week into June and the numbers of cases reported from NHS testing (so-called Pillar 1 data) reduced from nearly 7 new cases a day, to one new case every two days.  From the 2 July, the data reported by government was changed to include all the corona virus testing from independent and other testing (so-called Pillar 1 and 2).  The result was to boost the total of cases from 492 to 905, or from 230 cases per 100000 to 423 cases per 100000.   I have been noting the number of cases in Bristol only since 23 May – see the plot below.   These data indicate rather little change in numbers of new cases.   The change to Pillar1 & 2 numbers moved the numbers from 729 to 1276, or from 157 cases per 100000 to 275 per 100000.   The picture in Bristol is that the absolute number of cases is hig...

There have been teams digging up the lane in Barton for superfast broadband over the past two to three years.   We have waited for connection over a similar timescale.   Earlier in the year, we actually had our connection pot installed on the road verge, after we had been missed out.   In May, we had progress when the Gigaclear fibre line was connected to the house.   On 26 May, the line was run from our connection pot on the lane, through the wall by the road, along a shallow trench in the lawn, through the house wall to a box on the sitting room wall.   Unfortunately, however, there was a blockage found 50 m down the road, so we were unable to find out how superfast our broadband might be.   Up to now, we have survived on BT’s maximum of 8 Mbs, with buffering a regular feature. A team came on 10 June to sort the block and splice the fibre.   The story was that the block required the road being closed and dug up, as not only was the block at 50 m, the...

So, what has been happening with the number of reported Covid-19 cases in North Somerset since the last blog on this subject?  In local and national press, the news has been the closure of Weston General Hospital to new patients and the A&E department on 25 May, supposedly associated with a spike in numbers of cases of Covid-19 (See - https://www.thewestonmercury.co.uk/news/council-to-delay-reopening-services-after-south-west-r-rate-reaches-uk-high-1-6683792).  Matt Hancock also commented on the spike and the lockdown in Weston-super-Mare.   Continuing to use the number of daily cases reported on https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ for North Somerset, there is an interesting pattern emerging.  From the 16 April 2020 when I started noting the numbers up to 24 May, there has been a continuous increase in the number of cases averaging just under seven cases a day (6.8).  It is a remarkably straight line, possibly indicating that whatever actions were being ta...

Have you noticed the heavy advertising for travel and tourism?   It seems to be in every medium. just as lockdown is easing.   Have you ever thought: Why do we expect to travel the globe and be tourists everywhere?   What is this sense of entitlement?   What does travel do to climate, to local communities, wildlife etc.?   What should we be doing? Fairly recently, I heard the following: “Everybody has the right to travel to wherever they wish”.   Pre-coronavirus, that was probably a very widely held opinion.   However, at the very simplest level, this is patently now not the case.   I am not able to visit my grandchildren in Scotland.   If we were to follow our inclination to go where we like, when we like, in fairly short order we would likely be subject to state intervention and sanctions – and in my opinion, under current coronavirus conditions, rightly too, including Mr Cummings.   So, how does this sit with our apparently insatiab...

Do please read this book, if you haven't already.  It is well written and easy to read and describes the development of the Knepp estate rewilding project.  It also has some critically important messages that need to be spread far and wide.  Some 20 years ago, I visited the controversial Oostvaardersplassen grazing project in the Netherlands and I must now get to Knepp, as soon as the Covid-19 virus allows.  I've known about Knepp for some years and have been meaning to visit, but it hasn't happened yet.  Having read the book, I have a much clearer idea of how it came about and the struggles to achieve what is a critical initiative amongst the UK rewilding projects.  As a scientist that spent much of my career looking at farmland ecology and ways of maintaining biodiversity, particularly with field margins and hedgerows, this book challenges a host of underlying assumptions.  That is the key importance of the book for me.  However, ...