Poetic Licence
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Your support makes all the difference.Teenage eco-warrior Christiana Tugwell last week lost the first round of her battle to save 11 acres of woodland in Hockley, Essex, from the developers. In a ruling which has fuelled national controversy, a High Court judge gave the go-ahead to build luxury homes on the site
Luxury Homes vs The Woods
In the low slope of the winter sun
A skint young couple used to come
To haul a creaking pushchair
On a Sunday afternoon.
And halfway up the slope they'd stop
And gaze across the haze of trees
Light a fag and watch the squirrels
Bicker over fallen nuts.
Plots 9 and 11 / Adjoining carports.
Starter gardens / Hardy plants
Kerria. Berberis. Mahonia
Side access. Pea-shingle borders.
Bowed after a rainfall in summer
The elder-flowers used to nod
A smell of home-made liebfraumilch
The sun got up a head of steam
And drunk on that, the madcap dogs
Tore up and down the woodland paths
The shouting of their owners rang
As pigeons blundered from the trees
Plot 18. Luxury studio apartments (6)
Car-parking. Kitchen / Breakfast bar.
Power-shower. Parking allocations.
Parisian-style wrought iron balconies.
On grey and windless autumn days
The birches dripped their ingot leaves
The last of the Lords and Ladies
Saw the pale moon, late afternoon
As BMX boys, elbows bruised
Rode swearing over self-dug ramps
Until the dusk came seeping in.
And all the magpies settled down.
Plots 1-8 Superb 4-bed townhouses.
Authentic Essex weatherboarding.
Witch-hat gables. Weathercocks
100 per cent Part-exchange. Close M25.
Luxury Homes - 60
Local woodland - Nil
Martin Newell's latest collection entitled "NEW" will not be available in the shops until the New Year but is available to readers of The Independent by mail order for the reduced price of pounds 5.00 inc p&p. Send cheque made payable to NEWELL, to JLMP, 2 Featherbed Lane, Selling, Kent ME13 9QU
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