Tag: heatwave

A month since the UK came to terms with the consequences of drought, understood the significance of a raindance and why Johnny Cash asked “how high’s the water, mamma?” I ventured to see how The Crammer in Devizes is coping….

It’s been a day since we finally received a night of heavy rainfall, followed by a chiller night without much precipitation, but unfortunately the water level hardly touched the sides, and is still best described as a “puddle” rather than “pond.”

During the heatwave the BBC sent Borat, or at least his doppelganger, to stand in the middle of it for clickbait. No one from any environmental angle was invited to this party, only a Conservative town councillor who was encouraged to, not chat about future hopes or actions which could be considered, but about the folklore of the Moonrakers.

With Borat’s divine knowledge on the subject, this reporter persuaded his audience that because The Crammer has been here for centuries, “we know it will fill back up.” If there’s logic in this please point it out to me.

Let’s not butter it up with speculated reassurances and beloved stories of yore simply because residents in Devizes love tradition. Let’s not take sides, as Facebook keyboard warriors opinionate if it will or won’t fill back up. Yes, the Crammer relies solely on rainfall, so its levels will increase when it rains and fall during dryer spells. But I believe the real question we should be asking ourselves is, will it fill back up before the next heatwave, and the one after that, and the one after that?

It’s having a devastating effect on the wildlife there, of course, and we sympathise, of course we do. But the positive from this tragedy could be that we have in our midst, an unmissable pie chart, which Devizes residents can walk past and visibly see the effect of climate change. Bang! There it is, right before your eyes.

Sometimes people need to physically see to believe. We should view The Crammer as serving Devizes with undeniable evidence, actual representation, and hope it will encourage these ignorant deniers to rethink their wonky thesis, even if it offers no solution.

The obvious notion that while it was a desert it could be cleaned up also came under debate, where councillors, some who have denied the Crammer is polluted in the past, are going to tell you it’s too expensive, probably because it is. The run off from the road has caused toxicity which would require specialist attention to clean, is the general consensus, and has certainly been used as a penny-saving excuse, but, but, mamma, you said it wasn’t polluted!!

So, we leave a giant polluted empty puddle as our town’s focal point and pray to the gods it might refill before the next drought; welcome to Devizes, sorry, we cannot recommend open water swimming here, not even if you are a duck.

We have Facebook groups, Friends of The Crammer, and Crammer Watch, which both serve a worthy purpose, but perhaps, if we love our puddle, we need not to watch, befriend, or wallow in fables of moonlit cheese, but take positive action as a community. We’ve only got a pond to challenge us, but perhaps we could begin by taking a trip to Calne, where a charity of activists, The River Warriors regularly assemble via their own self-determination to clean out The Marden, to see how they’ve tackled an entire river.

We’ve suggested before, for the benefit of the wildlife, where swans become trapped there or risk the vertical takeoff across the busy road, because it’s the only option, that a professional assessment from environmental specialists might be better than Borat from the Beeb. That we might have a feasible study drawn, suggesting improvements to the design to better serve the environment and the wildlife. We could, in theory, have a mini conservation area, rather than a polluted duck pond. 

But one thing is certain in my mind, when it is as dried out as it has been, we could at the very least, reroute the runoff pipes from the road, and add new ones from the grassland on the Green. We could, at the very least, explore our options given by experts, rather than take to Facebook to convince (ourselves more than others) to keep calm and carry on, as it will refill when the rains come… we hope….

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