I’ve just walked through a future city. There was no one around, except for horses. This may be the point. Proposals for ‘Forest City 1’, on land between the Suffolk towns of Newmarket and Haverhill, appear to be based on the belief that these are barren fields, without many people to object.
FC1 would be a Cambridge 2.0 for this rapidly-growing region, with its uber-brains and high-tech industries – if locals let them through the gates.
As a prelude to the walk, I drove to the village of Dullingham (achingly pretty and nothing like its name). I found its white, wooden level-crossing gates shut across the road. There was no sign of any train. A computer malfunction?
Eventually the Ipswich-Cambridge express trundled past. Then a man in Network Rail orange pottered into view. He was opening the gates! I had no idea this lovely anachronism endured. If FC1 happens, it must uphold proud local traditions like manual level-crossings.
I parked in a country lane close to Dullingham on a bright winter’s day. I set off for a walk I assumed would offer a classic, southern English country idyll.
My first surprise was a vast new, gated mansion nearing completion on the lane. There were huge pillars and expensive gates everywhere, a pride of ornamental lions and miles of fences.
Powered by the area’s proximity to Newmarket, swaths of former farmland have been converted into privacy-loving studs. Stern notices about not disturbing the horses abounded, fixed to towering fences built, I imagine, to stop horse-rustlers eyeing up the latest stud.
The Icknield Way was squeezed between fences and tall hedges of recent vintage. Sloes and haws still clung to the bare branches from last year’s bumper crop. The hedge was busy with dozens of feasting blackbirds, who clucked with alarm as I passed. Further on, winter flocks of fieldfares chupped in annoyance as I disturbed their gatherings.
I turned south-east onto the Stour Valley Path, a lovely, cocooning green lane. The path linked a series of old, small woods. First was Marmer’s Wood and then Basefield Wood, which had pale ash, large oak standards and more hazel coppice. The Forest City developers claim they will retain all ancient woods and add new ones, but these quiet copses won’t be the same if they’re full of city-dwellers’ cats and dogs.
As I headed further from the influence of Newmarket, vast arable fields began to reassert themselves. I crossed a canalised stream where the water was running perfectly clear. The flat land is more than 300 feet above sea level. It’s the source of chalk springs and streams that feed the Stour in one direction and the Cam in the other. How will a large new city use water sustainably in this dry region?
I passed an artificial lake, around which horses stood like statues. They were penned in by an expensive metal fence. I turned onto another small public footpath, flanked by an electrified metal fence. Friendly.
Then I looked down at my feet. In the mud, the only prints were made by dozens of wild deer who must wander along this fence line, unable to move across the land as they would like.
I was actually on a deer expressway. My human path was behind a hedge to my right. So I hopped through and rejoined it, away from the electrification.
Behind a gate held up by huge white concrete pillars, horses in blankets enjoyed stables the size of a London flat.
I’ll always take the side of our quiet green countryside over moves to industrialise it, but I found this to be curiously unlovable land in its current, horsey guise. It was sterile in its tidiness and the only scent was suspicion.
Despite all these fine beasts, I only once picked up a warm waft of horse manure during the whole walk.
Horsey money has taken over this land. Will Forest City money be next?
I parked on Cross Green lane at What3Words: grazes.tape.soap. Take the Icknield Way north, south-east on the Stour Valley Path, turning south-west at Ten Wood onto footpath to rejoin Cross Green lane and walk back through Dullingham
