RAG Meeting

The on-site meeting duly took place last Thursday, chiefly memorable for the number of people looking miserable trying to cope with the midges. This gave the excuse for those wanting to call for us to move on from point to point although midges were everywhere. Sadly there was an absence of high drama. The riot police (if they had been summoned) failed to turn up because of more urgent calls elsewhere. Blacka Blogger was not shown the door for fear he would ask awkward questions although he felt he detected a hangdog look to certain of those attending who clearly knew they had been in the wrong. Otherwise things were much as had been expected.

A fair proportion of the attenders were there as a woolly insulation for SWT, their own members chiefly, who could be relied upon to support them in the event of independent persons choosing to raise concerns or criticise. They had very little if anything to say themselves and gave the impression of not really knowing the site at all well. (Typical of these is one SWT member who believes that people should always agree about everything.)

SWT staff also seemed often ignorant of the site itself and the background to agenda items. The matter of the Graves plaque was one of these - they thought it had been requested by the Dore Village Society whereas it had been put forward as a proposal from a previous RAG meeting having been raised by Blacka Blogger. They also seemed to have been unaware that their own Chief Executive under questioning from councillors in April had said that RAG meetings were publicised in advance on site in the Sheffield Star and at local libraries (none of this had happened).

The general impression was of a kind of guided tour led by people who were unsure of the route but anxious that only certain things could be talked about. I had put forward a number of things for discussion - nobody else had bothered - and was only allowed to get round to a few of them.

Chief causes of dissension were 1) the recent work done to bridleways, 2)the spraying of vegetation and 3) the cutting of trees. I will give more detail on these in another post.