General
Staycation with a Bicycle… Jaywick or bust!
Thursday 29 July 2021
June 2021 In their latest adventure in the saddle, Christine and David Knight took to Route 150… For people who don’t live by the sea, the Essex coast in all its diversity is always a special place to visit. From popular holiday resorts to lonely marshes, from the North Sea to tidal rivers and from […] Read more >
Staycation with a Bicycle… on to the Blackwater
Wednesday 7 July 2021
Late May 2021 In the second of her blogs, Christine Knight reports back from the remote Dengie peninsula, where she and husband David took their bikes in late spring. Having both been born and bred in Essex, there are not many tourist spots or towns that we haven’t visited over the years, but, being the […] Read more >
Staycation with a Bicycle
Thursday 1 July 2021
Christine Knight and husband David, CPRE Essex chairman, have dusted down the cobwebs and taken to their bicycles as they reacquaint themselves with the glories of the Essex countryside. Here, in the first of a series of articles or ‘blogs’, Christine tells how the couple ventured to the idyllic borderlands shared with Suffolk. May […] Read more >
Is this house well designed?
Thursday 11 March 2021
CPRE planner Richard Thompson asks whether a welcome policy aspiration risks becoming just another developer-led tick-box exercise Ask the public whether the above house is well designed and they are most likely to say yes, it is. Ask the same question to an architect, they are much more likely to dislike iti. So who is […] Read more >
High Sheriff of Essex: why I’m targeting the menace of litter
Wednesday 11 September 2019
Dr James Bettley, High Sheriff of Essex, has chosen to make litter one of the themes of his year in office. Here he writes for CPRE Essex on why he feels so strongly about the issue and tells how he has been joining volunteers across the county as they tackle a seemingly ever-present scourge. For […] Read more >
Appreciating our countryside
Wednesday 10 July 2019
Delegates at last month’s CPRE conference in Birmingham were urged to encourage more people to engage with the countryside. Here CPRE Essex vice-chairman Tricia Moxey does her bit and extols the joys of rural walking, highlighting the benefits it can bring to our overall well-being. Recent publicity has been encouraging us to spend time outside […] Read more >
Campaign through design
Monday 7 January 2019
This is the third blog that Ben Nourse, a graduate researcher working with the Cambridge Design Research Studio and studying to become a Master of Architecture in Urban Design, is sharing with CPRE Essex. Artificial countryside We must remember that an experience in the English countryside is not an experience with nature. The Domesday Book […] Read more >
There are other options to the car – perhaps our authorities might like to consider them
Wednesday 19 December 2018
The Lower Thames Crossing between Kent and Essex would destroy swathes of countryside on both sides of the river. This piece by Alex Hills, chairman of Dartford and Gravesham CPRE, relates to transport systems in north-west Kent, but the principles of his argument are just as pertinent in south Essex Since the 1950s, successive governments […] Read more >
The Lower Thames Crossing… a helping hand for a serial killer?
Wednesday 28 November 2018
With the prospect of the Lower Thames Crossing between Essex and Kent threatening swathes of countryside on both sides of the river, Alex Hills, chairman of Gravesham CPRE, offers his view on government roads policy while also asking if we’re all doing our bit to tackle air pollution By continuing to build poorly planned new […] Read more >
Red, white and grey… a standardised national landscape
Wednesday 21 November 2018
This is the second blog that Ben Nourse, a graduate researcher working with the Cambridge Design Research Studio and studying to become a Master of Architecture in Urban Design, is sharing with CPRE Essex. In 1955, Ian Nairn famously coined the phrase ‘subtopia’, a term referring to the suburban monotonisation of English landscapes. Architectural critic […] Read more >