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We are delighted that Aylesbury Vale District Council has refused planning permission to Mr Mark Fowler to fly microlight aircraft from Bernwood Farm, Botolph Claydon in mid Bucks. The application was retrospective: Mr Fowler, the tenant of Bernwood Farm, was already flying aircraft there without consent.
We backed our member the Botolph Claydon Quiet Society and opposed the application because the planes shatter the peace of this tranquil area, and the runways cross, or pass close to, three public paths. One of these is the Bernwood Jubilee Way through the long-forgotten Bernwood Forest.
Bluebells in Runts Wood, close to the site. Picture by Dylan Winter
The district council agreed with the objectors and refused consent because of the impact of the noise and movements of aircraft taking off, landing and taxiing on the rural tranquillity of the village and on users’ enjoyment of the adjacent paths.
Says our general secretary, Kate Ashbrook: ‘This is a splendid victory for this lovely countryside, those who live there and those who visit. We trust that all microlight activity here will now cease.
‘It is surprising that the owner of Bernwood Farm, Sir Edmund Verney, did not oppose the plan. He is president of the Bucks branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, and he must therefore have signed up to its aim to “promote the beauty, tranquillity and diversity of rural England”. Microlights hardly promote tranquillity,’ Kate concludes.