Ms Stevie Rogers. chairman of Dartmouth Green Partnerships, writes:

What will a Dartmouth of the future look like? What will the environmental legacy in the town which we leave to future generations, be?

If present trends continue unchecked, then the answers to these questions are very clear – Dartmouth will be a much built up town where very few trees, gardens, hedgerows, parks or public green spaces exist.

The rate of destruction of the town’s ‘Green Environment’ is speeding up and (judging from the number of comments made recently to Dartmouth Green Partnerships), many people in the town have noticed the destruction and are concerned.

Established garden environments are being paved over or destroyed by overlarge new builds and extensions.

Hedges are being grubbed out and our town’s trees are being felled (or butchered) and not replaced.

The recent destructive vandalism by an alleged part time resident, towards a publicly owned Magnolia in Coronation Park, caused much public outrage and rightly so.

Over the last few weeks, real concerns have been expressed to us about the over-development of the publicly owned parks in the town, especially Coronation Park.

This park, is at present under the aegis of the cash-strapped South Hams Council.

To most people in the town, the ‘value’ of this park (which is a designated ‘Pleasure Ground for games and recreation’) is as an open green space.

Unfortunately, it now appears to many in the town, that the ‘value’ of this public asset to the local authority, derives solely from its potential as a source of revenue.

One visible consequence of this is the new commercial development on the tea hut site, which even allows for extending and paving over the publicly owned parkland grass.

This is a good opportunity to remind everyone that our natural environment is fragile, once gone it cannot easily be re-instated and that the town will be a sad place with no space left for nature.