Madam,

With no disrespect to Jackie Bat-Isha and Lin Stevens (Letters, 13 December, ‘Let’s move on from focus on Tree’) and other supporters of Robert Davies’s intended ‘Tree’ sculpture, I would like to address some points made in Jackie and Lin’s letter.

Firstly, Kim Williams, in her letter to the Cambrian News (‘What a poignant and respectful beach art project - unlike Tree’, 22 November), was surely objecting not to metal sculptures in general, but to a large, long-term metallic presence on a beach.

Secondly, the description of beaches as being ‘democratic spaces’ was made by the artistic director Danny Boyle, only quoted by Kim. Mr Boyle meant that beaches are egalitarian places, where no one’s aspirations dominates over others’ desires. This, as Kim notes well, conflicts with the way Tree intends to interpose itself in the relationship between the beach - and submerged forest - and the individuals who visit them. The prominence of Mr Davies’s sculpture will oblige visitors to respond to it, rather than to the environment directly in their own free, individual way.

The strength of feeling about this in Borth is testimony to the love many people here have for the stretch of beach between Borth and Ynyslas as it is. People unfamiliar with the landscape are unlikely to object to Tree on aesthetic grounds: it is not that the sculpture will be ugly, but that the existing beauty will be despoiled (objections to the sculpture by members of the Borth lifeboat crew on safety grounds are another matter). Those in Borth who support the sculpture should acknowledge the strength of feeling, but they have no right or reason to imply, as Jackie and Lin’s letter comes close to doing, that the Tree objectors have an intolerant attitude to those who disagree with them. We absolutely do not.

Mr Davies does have permission for his sculpture, so it is easy for his supporters to say ‘stop making such a fuss’. But many of us care very deeply for the beach as it is, so we will continue to protest against this threat to it. For some of us, the environment under threat is the very place we go when we seek to contemplate the most universal, most spiritual matters.

Yours etc,

Dr Rychard Carrington, Cae Gwylan, Borth.

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