POLLUTION OF THE RIVER TRENT & PLANNING IN THE WEST MIDLANDS

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The contamination of the River Trent between Stoke and Yoxall this week with sewerage and cyanide, leading to the deaths of thousands of fish, is a sad reminder of the importance of “water issues” for the West Midlands, as reflected in the Examination of the Region’s proposed Phase 2 Spatial Strategy Revision’s earlier this year. This latest incident follows a recent prosecution of the Severn Trent Water company by the Environment Agency for a previous sewerage leak into the river.

In my closing submission to the RSS Examination – post of 26.6.2009 @  http://janetmackinnon.wordpress.com– I therefore invoked a Sewer King, as a sort contemporary equivalent of the Fisher King in Anglo-Celtic culture, who would lead the implementation of a new age of eco-logical infrastructure in the region, and thereby help bring about wider sustainable regeneration.

My Meeting with a Dark Stranger

Walking along the Worcester waterfront en route to the railway station on Friday,  I was approached by a strange black creature which reminded me of a fictional wood demon called Tom Tit Tot from a story book of my childhood. At the time, I thought this creature was probably an escaped ferret, but upon further investigation I now suspect it was a mink. The creature seemed to greet me with a sort of husky miaw before proceeding on its way. What might this curious encounter presage, I wondered.

On Sunday afternoon, I found myself in the small mid Wales village of Borth on the Cambrian Coast which has an “Animalarium” whose residents comprise some erstwhile exotic pets.  Could my dark stranger have been one of these perhaps ?

http://www.animalarium.co.uk