Misled by a map

12:30pm Friday 12th October 2007

Further to your story regarding Ceredigion County Council's extremely dangerous public footpath route through our land, it needs to be explained that the route zig-zags, totally unfenced, through our farm for 1220 metres , in the shape of half a swastika.

There are no fences proposed along the three open field sides of this zig-zag, which means that the bulk of our 340 acre farm will be trespassed by tens of thousands of walkers per year . Tenants' cattle with calves will attack unsuspecting walkers with children and dogs.

The farm park, which comprises about half the farm, is below this section so that is totally unprotected. There are three ordinary farm gates separating the farm from the farm park in one section. They can never be locked, and are frequently wide open, because our own and tenants' farm traffic, plus agricultural contractors ,are driving through them, sowing and harvesting grain ,silage and hay from March to October annually. The Planning Inspector claims that I have not proved that people will enter the farm park free of charge whilst the barrier is a one metre high sheep fence with three farm gates in it. It is incredible! He was formerly an RAF officer who spent decades behind a 10 feet fence with armed guards on the gates. Why not put sheep netting around military camps then?

Then the public path actually enters the eastern end of the farm park for a full half a mile,onto Pen Tew headland , the second best seal and dolphin viewpoint within our farm park , before venturing onto the very hazardous section described in the article ,ending in an 80 feet deep ,75 metre wide ravine on our eastern farm boundary. So how can the inspector claim our business is not harmed?

We take people to these parts within the safety of our trailer at certain times of year.

I would not dream of allowing our visitors to walk these dangerous unfenced cliffs. Our insurance company says they would pay public liability insurance to the family of a deceased claimant there could be many!,but would then claim recompense off the council. However, they have not visited this part of the farm park yet. I doubt that they will insure us. Without insurance, we cannot open any of the farm park at all to the public, because it is one entity. Therefore, we will be claiming millions of pounds of compensation from Ceredigion County Council for 15 years of past investment and 20 years of future earnings.

Furthermore, the inspector admits that public path walkers are going to park on our top access road, thereby blocking it to farm park traffic, because there is no public car park for miles around. However, he did not reply when I said that meant that emergency vehicles, including fire tenders,ambulances, Coast Guard and electricity repair teamsif a live cable comes down on our car park in a gale could not access the farm park.

The lack of common-sense being displayed by Ceredigion County Council and the Planning Inspector is incredible.

We are being forced by this council to go to the High Court and spend a fortune to defend our whole livelihood and property. Yet the council has never even given us a site visit. Six out of eight councillors that I have questioned did not even vote for a path entering the farm park. They were misled by a map without a single word of detail.

Every councillor will be cross-examined in the High Court as to what he or she voted for on March 1st 2006, St David's Day, an excellent day to kill off a Welsh business which brought 26000 potential shoppers into Cardigan last year. This could be 80,000 in the not too distant future , a lifeline both for the town and Cardigan Castle ,which is going to be in desperate need of visitors to be viable.

We own 500 global internet tourism domain names , linked to our www.visit-the- world.co.uk and www.cardiganisland.com web-sites. see the Business page They attract web traffic from across the whole world. We also employed 26 local young people on a part-time basis this year.

If we close, then they are all out of work.

To bypass our farm park is a mere 0.6 mile detour to Ferwig. We live in an amazingly myopic county!

Yours faithfully, L. J Jenkins Cardigan Island Coastal Farm Park, Gwbert, Cardigan