I came to the slightly surreal realisation this week that we now live in a world where we don’t believe a word the President of the United States says.
And it’s not just an American problem – believing and trusting the ‘decision makers’ feels like a big ask right now.
We’ve looked at the proposed fire station closures this month – you won’t have missed the headlines, but we wanted to get into the detail.
This is one of our emergency services: what is actually being decided is what happens to some of us when something goes wrong and help is further away than it used to be. These decisions rest on data, so when the Fire Brigades Union suggests that the data may already be out of date, it raises a simple question: are we comfortable with what we’re basing this important decision on?
In the history section, there’s a photo essay on Sydling St Nicholas in 1947 (one of my favourite features this month, p.64). A photographer captured people going about their day – just a village, being itself – and I find the images oddly moving. They show an unremarkable, deeply rooted way of life. It’s what gives Dorset its shape. Its identity and its memory. And it’s the ever-increasing loss of this very thing that is at the heart of Trevor Bailey’s open letter (p.15).
He talks about how government policy is driving an unprecedented assault on rural England – and it’s difficult to ignore the sense that something is shifting. Across the county, communities are increasingly angry that decisions are being made about places, rather than with them. Decision making is much easier if you look at data sets and not at lives being lived.
None of this is simple. Dorset isn’t a museum piece, and it shouldn’t be. Villages change. Towns grow. They always have.
But there’s a difference between change you choose and change that arrives unwanted, without explanation.
And that difference comes down to whether you trust how those decisions are being made.
Wishing all our readers a very happy Easter weekend – we’re not immune to choosing change ourselves …
Laura x
On Ukrainian refugee Olena
But these are exactly the sort of people we need, yet we have so many that we don’t. They have integrated, they work, they are in education and they care for someone, saving the state from having to fork out.
That’s actually making money for the country through taxes, while also saving money.
I’d rather have this family in Dorset than a huge number of other people – even some of our own. These people are what it’s all about in a rural community. They integrate and they appreciate – that’s exactly what this country requires.
Isn’t it odd how, in this country, the people who get the least help are often the ones who deserve it most? I guess they are easy prey to make examples of.
Greg Korbutt, Facebook
I am privileged to know and have worked alongside Lilia, who is outstanding. A huge contribution to this country not only in work ethic but attitude, kindness and moral compass – exactly the kind of person you would want as a neighbour and to encourage to live here. This situation beggars belief and I am lost for words that they are facing this. The incompetence of our ability to process and apply common sense is staggering.
Edward Morello please do your best.
Lucy Chisholm, Facebook
On Dorset Council and its tax
I recently received my Council Tax bill for the coming year. Of course, the inevitable rise. However, what appalled me most was the breakdown. While the various elements were in the region of 5%, the tax for East Stour showed a 26.2% increase over last year. In 2025, the increase was 15.4%. The £27 figure, while not significant in the overall scheme of things, showed an increase of about £25.
After a wait of over an hour, Dorset Council returned my call, but no one in that office could give me an explanation of the local tax.
In East Stour we seem to get nothing for our money, besides an efficient refuse collection. The drains are always overflowing and never cleaned, there is little street lighting and little in the way of footpaths, especially in the most dangerous areas of the village. This week, our once-a-week Post Office closes. We are continually exposed to speeding motorists, and nothing is done to deter them.
In another neck of the woods, I wrote to Dorset Council regarding traffic lights at the junction of the A30, the site of repeated crashes over the years. I will return to this.
Last October I wrote to Dorset Council with a simple request: ‘What is the amount that the Council spends on salaries and pensions?’
My initial letter was ignored until I wrote again, and the leader came back with a fudged answer. Eventually I wrote again and copied the letter to our MP. I did receive an answer from the Information Compliance Team, who told me that under the Freedom of Information Act they were to release the requested information to me.
The figures show that the percentage contribution of the overall budget is 40% to salaries and 9% to pensions. At the same time I received my tax bill, the council sent out its newsletter. This purports to show how the Council spends its money. No specific reference is made to salaries and pensions.
I would suggest that some economies are made by way of staff reductions. The first could be the Accident Prevention Officer, who did not reply to me directly regarding the A30.
After my second letter to Simon Hoare, he wrote back to him. Mr Hoare forwarded his reply to me. The Accident Prevention Officer advised us that there would be no consideration of traffic lights at the A30 crossroads until a fatality occurred. I suggest he reads his job description.
I could go on, ad nauseam.
Jeremy Bloomfield, East Stour
On the skylark
[Jane Adams’ account of] the skylark at Badbury Rings was very moving. Yes, I recall being chilled to the marrow at Badbury Rings in late winter too – sometimes at point-to-point race meetings.
Also reminded of George Meredith’s poem ‘The Lark Ascending’ which inspired Ralph Vaughan Williams’ exquisite tone poem:
‘He rises and begins to round,
He drops the silver chain of sound
Of many links without a break,
In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake, …
Jonathan Pullen, Facebook
On Roundup and the road ahead
The trouble is that glyphosate breaks down into AMPA in the environment. This can cross the blood-brain barrier and cause seizures. Additionally we don’t know is what else it is really doing in the body. The evidence is mounting.
Glyphosate was designed to be a weedkiller not a desiccator. Since it was first used extensively in the 1970s the health of people in general has declined, including increased numbers of people with gluten intolerance or similar.
More recently it has been used as a desiccator on oil seed rape and grains etc prior to harvest because the contractors need to be able to plan which farm/field they are going to cut next. It is all part of producing cheaper food. We have no real idea of the long term effects on people health of this usage.
Jo Nash
On are we wasting our time? – Dorset Insider
Great article, but incredibly depressing. This and previous governments of this country and, by association, county councils, have abdicated responsibility for building houses to people whose only purpose is to make a profit. That in itself is not a crime and of course creates work, but when what you’re trying to achieve is a necessary social enhancement to people’s lives – a right to have a roof over your head – profit cannot always be front and centre.
I grew up in a council house. Our road was full of ordinary families of every shape, size, colour and creed, bringing up their families. The house is of course no longer a council house, but when it was sold in 1988, it wasn’t replaced with alternative stock. I hate that word for homes: “stock”. It dehumanises what that house was and still is. A home.
Remember Town Planning? Not just houses, but parks, doctors, churches, schools, shops … Now it’s just houses and a contribution to the CIL which, if you’re lucky, might provide infrastructure or it might end up being used to repair the Twin Sails bridge in Poole or Rockley Pier.
It seems to me there is a great deal of talk about Local Plans, but there are no plans – just numerical targets. The look and feel, the sense of community are all irrelevant. The need is irrelevant. It’s just numbers. Everywhere you drive, characterless orange brick new building estates … or should I call them collections of houses, built in the middle of nowhere, where there is no work, no infrastructure.
Are we building for a housing need or simply to keep people and supply chains in work?
There is no plan. Just numbers.
Steve McMaster
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