I’m not knocking you, but getting the

My Name is Andy Violet, my wife is Tracey Dunford-Violet. We would like to thank you for giving us a mention in Edition 24, page 47 for winning the Christmas Cheer competition

‘Most Festive Front Door’ and for including a photograph of the ‘Violets’ front door’. However, it is indeed the ‘Violets’ front door’ but the photograph is of my twin brother’s front door: He lives at the Cemetery Lodge and works for Bridport Town Council – the photograph was used by Bridport Town Council to advertise the Most Festive Front Door competition! I enclose a photograph of OUR front door, (pictured right) located at Gundry Road, which WAS the winning front door!

Your feature has given us a laugh, as my brother’s front door is lovely, traditional and quite befitting the cemetery – however – working for the Town Council, he was unable to enter, but is now chuffed that he appears to have won!

Tracey and I, however, are pleased to have won the front door competition, particularly as, during the same week, we also won the best festive window for the Howard Road / Gundry Road estate – with our window ‘Christmas in Hollywood’ , judged by our Mayor Ian Bark. Moreover, with Tracey and I being members of the Bridport Heritage Forum, our small group of six also won the Best Dressed Table at the Mayor’s Christmas Quiz, and we also won the actual quiz, from 19 teams.

All in all, Tracey and I had a rather good festive season!

Andy Violet and Tracey

Dunford-Violet n Your January magazine described the wrongful uprooting of hedges and mature trees by the developer of the proposed Vearse Farm housing estate in Bridport. You described it as ‘controversial’ – well, that’s an accurate assessment and deserves a bit of detail.

The proposition is to build 760 homes on farmland adjoining Bridport, with a further 170 under consideration. It’s in the Dorset AONB, where only special circumstances (there are none) should justify development, and it is the biggest incursion ever attempted into any AONB in England. It represents around a ten per cent step change in the size of the town, which has grown only sporadically for generations, and would overload already stretched local services of all sorts. That’s just for starters.

Why is it even being considered? Because our local authority want it. Not Bridport residents, but the guardians of our local environment. It was not necessarily their idea, but central government demanded that every local authority provide a certain number of new homes according to an inflexible formula, and the council were pleased to oblige. The Vearse Farm site having just (conveniently) been put forward by developers, they then set about justifying the massive expansion on various tenuous grounds.

They said Bridport has an ageing population and needs to attract young families to work in its businesses. In fact, many of the houses will probably go to wealthy retirees or become second homes, as actually we’re a place of small, mainly locallyowned businesses.

They said if Bridport wants affordable homes – which it desperately does – twice as many open-market homes must be built to subsidise them. That is not so, there are other ways to finance affordable housing. To make matters worse, 40% of the homes are to be four or more bedrooms, whereas the need –defined in detail in our local Neighbourhood Plan – makes it clear what we need for our future is almost exclusively 1, 2 and 3 bedroom homes. Controversial? Yes, you could say so. We have been stitched up by the very people who should be assuring the wellbeing of our community.

P.S.: I notice the campaigning organisation Advearse lists on its website 13 reasons this development should not be permitted! Take a look.

Glenn Crawford, Bridport n My husband and I visit Dorset (Wyke Regis) once a month to enjoy the beautiful surroundings and do some walking etc. I picked up a free copy of your magazine today in Sainsburys and was very impressed. It was full of proper interesting articles and lots of details of future events which we hope to attend. Thank you to you and your team for your hard work.

Ann Ball n Goodness your magazine HAS got bigger! It took me quite a while to read. Congratulations! There is one suggestion I have for you to consider... I always go First to the Whasson pages to see what is happening in my Broadwindsor/Bridport area, as I can get to fairly local events easily without a car! Might it be possible to put the AREA first in bold, so I can see the places I can get to? Instead of having to plough through to find out where they are.... It took me an AGE to go through and see what was on around here!

Christine Corson, Beaminster No problem, Christine!

We will now highlight the area, the date and the type of event. Ed

Many people in our area are members of the National Trust and enjoy days out at the wonderful properties and gardens we are so lucky to have on our doorstep, but did you know that there are National Trust Associations around the country whose aim is to support the work of the trust in their area?

Our local association is the Blackmore Vale and Yeovil National Trust Association, run entirely by enthusiastic volunteers, is not-for-profit and all moneys raised go to help the properties we support, Stourhead, Montacute House, Barrington Court, Lytes Cary Manor and Tintinhull Gardens. We aim to provide little extra comforts for visitors or enhance their enjoyment of the properties. Recently, our local association provided garden equipment and plants, a wheelchair ramp for Barrington Court, a new bench for Montacute House and tablets for Lytes Cary Manor loaded with a virtual tour of the upper floor, not easily accessible for visitors with reduced mobility. These are the type of benefits the association aims to provide for the properties it supports which have been greatly appreciated by the management and visitors. We obviously need to raise some money to provide these extras for the properties and there is a lively social side as well. The association holds lunches in local venues, meetings in the Digby Hall, Sherborne for a varied series of talks in autumn and winter and day trips out in spring and summer to local and not so local places of interest. As well as all that there are members’ newsletters in spring and autumn.

Recent talks have covered historical crossings on the River Severn, changes in the Dorset landscape over the last 75 years from aerial photographs, and