Happy New Year fellow bloggers!
Well it won't be for the residents of Ilford Park. They're waiting for the bulldozers to flatten their town this year following the granting of permission to develop the area until Sibelco Interstellar Inc. wanted the clay underneath it.
What a stupid idea of the then Government to overturn the rejection of the local authority. It was always going to end in tears. Sibelco went Interstellar some thirty years ago you'll remember when they obtained all mining rights on the moon.
And does anyone remember the old settlement of Kingsteignton? Not the new one that was built on the worked out Great Pit but the original one that was flooded out seventy odd years ago when the Rackerhayes flood storage reservoir didn't work and 200 people lost their lives. The old town was then left to the mercy of the rising tides and can just be made out now twice a year on the Spring and Autumn low tides.
Now that Heathfield has been cleared ready for clay extraction, the residents of Bovey Tracy are finding it hard to sell their property as the deposits there are next for harvesting. They've already suffered as a result of the moving of the A38 next to their town at the request of Sibelco so they could extend the Stover Pit. It was bad enough when the railway was diverted through there many years ago. I still have pictures of Stover Park as was before that was ravaged for clay.
And if anyone had dared to predict this one hundred years ago they'd have been laughed out of the Council Chamber.
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Well, I for one have benefited from the changes. You must accept the opportunities change puts your way as my grandad did My new ferry service to Wolborough Creek (used to be street) and Knowles Head departs every hour from Fore Street slipway.
ReplyDeleteKingsteignton certainly has changed. Gappah, Fosterville and Babcombe broke away after being snubbed in the Kingsteignton Town Newsletter of January 2010, which left them at the mercy of a foreign owned company specialising in rubbish based land build. All became part of a massive land build site where in later years a new urban village called Viridon (the hill of Viri)was built. It was hailed as a new sustainable marvel with endless supplies of methane gas to provide power. Then the trouble started as sickly children were born. Tales of even worse happenings were rumoured. No one knows what exactly as it was fenced off and quarantined without further ado. It's now completely isolated. Nobody has been there for years. No one goes in and no one comes out. The howls of the poor wretches trapped within its enclosure echo in the darkness are explained away as foxes with colic. The town council explained away the awful stench that emanates from there as "country smells".
Is it true that Kingwalterstown was once called Kingsteignton?
ReplyDeleteRumour has it that illegally dumped toxic waste gave rise to giant rats which burrowed deep into the hill to feed off the prion rich remains of cattle dumped there in a foot and mouth cull. Turned out they all had BSE!!!This made the rats go mad and viscious and some say they ate the people living there. They had to be contained for fear of escaping, hence the wall and fencing. Well, that's what I was told.
ReplyDeleteKingwalterstown was once called Kingsteignton but that name is only used by local plebs who refuse to accept change.
To quote Capt Mainwaring "I think you're getting in the realms of fantasy"............only just though!
ReplyDeleteI don't think the last poster lives around here.
ReplyDelete