Wisbech Community Forum

In Decline and Fall the acerbic Evelyn Waugh wrote of something common among 1920s undergraduates at Oxford and Cambridge, “the sound of English county families baying for broken glass.” I suspect modern university students don’t go in for this. They are much too busy no-platforming visiting academics, stamping out such cultural appropriation horrors as young men wearing sombreros at Mexican-themed entertainments, and tearing down statues of historical benefactors who don’t tick enough boxes on the ‘woke’ check list.

Here in Wisbech we have more than our fair share of broken glass – and wrecked public toilets, vandalised iron railings, broken-into castles and other nastiness. That our trail of destruction is caused by feral teenagers with ‘can’t be arsed’ parents and room-temperature IQ, rather than privileged young toffs, is neither here nor there. I believe that the Boys (and girls, or non-specific gendered individuals) In Blue have had “a strong word” with certain individuals. No doubt that “strong word”, whatever it was, will have been monitored by all manner of official agencies, including social workers, the Wisbech representative of Amnesty International and, for all I know, pensioned-off functionaries from South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. All present, to see fair play, of course, and to ensure that the youngsters on bikes were not having their human rights trampled on by the jackbooted members of Cambridgeshire Constabulary.

But I digress. Here in PE13 we have our own clamour, our very own cries in the night. Like King Lear, raging at fate on his desolate and wind-swept heath, voices are being raised against the proposal to build a waste incinerator on land situated within that verdant gem of architecture, wildlife and culture – the Algores Way industrial estate. Long-time observers of the Wisbech scene will know that we have two violently inimical factions in town. Imagine a face-off between Israel and Hamas or Sinn Fein and the DUP, and you will be getting close. Both parties have their own campaigns against the incinerator, and it’s every man for him or her self as they scrabble to take – and hold – the moral high ground.

But what of the issue itself, the chimney allegedly belching out carcinogenic particles, the relentless pounding of HGVs as they deliver the waste to the incinerator? First up, of course, it’s our waste, and that of thousands of other perfectly law-abiding families across this part of East Anglia. Most of us tinker around with recycling, and make the right noises about becoming greener-than-thou. Whose smartphone, tablet or desktop computer doesn’t, as its screensaver, use a picture of St Greta embracing St David Attenborough? I know mine does, but I use it alternate weeks with a touching collage of scorched koala bear images.

I vaguely remember a schooldays game called ‘No Haves’, where something (usually stolen from the butt of the joke) was passed around class at high speed because no-one wanted to be caught with it in their hands. This incinerator business is rather like that. We own the waste because we buy it, whether it’s food packaging or the intractable moulded plastic shells around almost any implement for workshop or kitchen. Of course we don’t want an incinerator in our backyard. We must fight tooth and nail to make sure that the project is foisted on some other unsuspecting community. Know your weapons, is the first rule of such protests. Schools nearby? Excellent – no one wants our Year 9 showered with tiny bits of God-knows-what. If the posionous miasma happens to descend on teenagers in, say, Spalding, Holbeach, or Downham Market, then it’s just bad luck – they should have invested in more banners, and had a more dynamic Facebook campaign.