Our home remains

After a long winter in hibernation, we are emerging to begin another year of foraging in our Knowle treetop parkland, and are delighted to find it’s still here.

Our future was looking very bleak and uncertain when we wrote to the Sidmouth Herald last summer, when we were threatened with eviction from our home at The Knowle.

Imagine our joy when we heard the good news last week - the bat world is all a-twitter with the news - that human common sense and democracy had prevailed when six of your elected representatives voted against the ill-conceived outline planning proposal to develop our home.

Whilst not fully understanding the nature of council finance and business decision-making, it does seem to us that an awful lot of time and money has been spent on this plan.

Think what could have been done for the poor and needy in your community with a quarter of a million pounds!

Surely senior officers and elected members who have been intent on driving this plan forward should be held accountable for this waste of public money.

In our community, if bats mis-behave, they are driven out.

Well, that forum is none of our business, our consciences are clear and we’ll continue to do our best for Sidmouth’s ecosystem when the mosquitoes return to bite.

All of our community want to sincerely thank SOS and all the groups and people who had the courage to campaign, march and protest against the development plan. Thank you all, and like us, remain vigilant.

Bats at The Knowle

(friends of Michael Gordon-Lee)