The website reNews is reporting that the GMB union has belatedly realized that Rampion is unlikely to provide much work for its members:
UK union GMB has today called on German utility Eon to provide more information on the employment benefits from the 665MW Rampion offshore wind farm near Brighton.
The union, which represents workers in the energy industry, is concerned that the Round 3 project will bring no boost to the UK economy yet would assure Eon “a good return on their investment”.
GMB said it suspected that Eon will source the turbines from Germany or Denmark, transport them on barges from the Netherlands and connect them with cables made in China.
An aerial photo of Hut Farm by Joe Lancaster, taken around 1980. The farm buildings are bottom left, Pippins and Poynings Road are top right.Hugh Rapley used to live in Clappers Lane and he and his family left many many imprints on Fulking which still echo in the village. Hugh and his brother ran the market garden and dairy from Hut Farm (see photo above). The cows fed in the field which is now the smooth green cricket club pitch (Preston Nomads). Their milk was still being delivered around the village in the mid 1980s. And Hut Farm? Now transformed into Cannonberries, a single storey dwelling precisely on the site of the old farm buildings with extensive and elegant gardens where the long strips of the fuit and veg had grown for years.
Hugh had an interest in clocks especially old clocks. He could mend neighbours’ clocks and he restored beautiful old clocks and sold many of them in the village shop. People were often very surprised having come in for an ice cream to then see these working antique clocks at very modest prices alongside collectible old books, local pottery and paintings, local bread, baked beans, butter and a post office.
Before the war Hugh’s cow field had been the village field, I was told. And our current village field (North Town Field)? That was probably a cow field. And Barn Cottage, in the north west corner of old Hut Farm? Exactly what it says: a bungalow built ‘inside’ a barn when planners said ‘no’ to proposed demolition.
Gill Milner, Old Post Office
Another aerial photograph of Hut Farm, this one taken in 1946
Fulking residents see it every day as they look up at the Downs. But what is it? When was it built? Why is it in that location? Is it a relic of the Napoleonic wars? Was it once a semaphore station? A camera obscura? Did it play a role in James Hubbard’s Victorian recreation complex on the Dyke? Why is it called “the bomb house”? Did it ever have a roof? Why is it half full of earth? Why are several walls damaged? Is Canada to blame?
You’ll find out the answers to these questions, and many others, if you attend Martin Snow’s talk The Devil’s Dyke — Pleasure Ground to Bombing Ground at the Beeding & Bramber Local History Society meeting at 7:45pm on Wednesday 2nd October in the Village Hall, Upper Beeding.
Back by popular demand, following the success of the Call my Bluff at the village fair in July.