Mono-Monday: "The Environment" - Green Field Loss

As you'll probably already know, I've chosen "The Environment" as this week's Mono-Monday theme. This is in recognition of the fact that this Friday is "Earth Day".

My blip shows yet another green field which, it seems, is soon to be lost to housing development. Planning permission was refused by North Tyneside Council, but this was over-ruled by the Secretary of State for Local Government after an appeal by the developer. So much for local democracy! At least the Council is now working on a new full local plan for future development which will make it easier to resist inappropriate developments in future - but this will have to include provisions for a large number of new houses somewhere. Brownfield sites should be used as much as possible; more loss of agricultural land cannot be good for the environment in all sorts of ways.

The Secretary of State did insist on an archaeological survey prior to the start of building work. As far as I know this was completed last year although it seems impossible to find the outcome. However there are rumours of either Roman remains, or remains of an Iron Age roundhouse having been found. Anyway, there is no evidence so far of building work being about to commence, and a new crop has been planted in the field as you can see in the photo - so whatever was found seems to have resulted in some delay at least.

I hope you have fun dreaming up your Mono-Monday photos for this week. Please remember to tag them "MM117".  I know I'll have fun looking through them all! I'll post my Hearts and Honourable Mentions on Wednesday or Thursday.

(PS If you're looking for photos of yesterday's Scarborough Blipmeet, I've uploaded a couple of extras on yesterday's page here and a  there's a flickr album here).