Paul Arnott: 'Bit of snooker and Green Wedge fun'

On Monday night this week for the first time in years I watched the climax of the world snooker finals on BBC2 when Kyren Wilson prevailed over the dignified Jak Jones.

It took me back to growing up with a quarter-sized snooker table which could be pulled from behind a cupboard and balanced on the table in the dining room.

It bred a very odd technique in me and my teenage friends, like bonsai gardeners who thought they were lumberjacks. When a few years later we could go into pubs with full-size snooker tables, we found that our quarter-size slice shots and rocket powered potting often left us pitifully short of our aim on the seemingly huge baize surface.

We also learned harshly that snooker was more than a parlour game about potting balls; it was about thinking three steps ahead, building a defence in case you missed an ambitious pot and of course, which we simply never managed on our mini-Crucible in the dining room with half-length cues, snookering the other players.

Snooker at the highest level is about mental strength and character, but also about strategy. And so, it was watching the snooker final that I found myself for about half an hour paying minimal attention to where the brilliant players were potting the balls, sometimes from seemingly impossible positions, but focussing instead on only where the white ball went, from the moment it was played to the incredibly intelligent position it ended up, a whole line of tactics ready to flow from that.

I now offer a perhaps torturous analogy with the predicament of the many East Devon residents across the whole district who are worried that in the process of making the Local Plan, which government obliges us to do, the council is looking at Green Wedges and their future status. (A Green Wedge is a portion of land between existing communities which is not favoured as developable land because to build there would encourage coalescence between villages or towns.)

Quite understandably, local people who wish to conserve Green Wedges – and I was at the heart of a campaign to designate land between Colyford and Seaton as such a decade ago – are very worried that even considering their status as we develop the Local Plan risks de-designating some or all of the sites. This perceived threat is also being whipped up further by some seeking electoral gain.

However, from the many meetings I have attended with good councillors from all political backgrounds, none of them want de-designation to happen and are mature enough to realise that just discussing their future does not equate to a desire to abolish. It has now been agreed that the Green Wedges will be put out to public consultation, so that the council may take the current temperature of support for and against Green Wedge designation.

As a good snooker player realises, one simple pot of angry public objection or a publicity campaign will not win the game. The government has set the rules, and, like it or not, the people and councillors of East Devon need to control the white ball. This won’t be about valid and valiant speech-making; it will be about where local people and their elected representatives want to land in the end. By offering the matter out to public consultation, we have ensured the white ball is out there for local communities to play.

We genuinely need all those with an interest to take part. You can be certain that aspiring landowners and developers will.