Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen.

This week has been a remarkable week, an historic week. First of all with the Olympic bid, which we were successful with for the United Kingdom and then, tragically, the events in London on the day following, and then today, of course, the ceremonies marking the end of WWII. I was only a schoolboy in those days but I still remember the war years as a number of people here today will. And so I think it would be appropriate, given the fact that we are remembering the end of the war and those who died so that we might enjoy our freedom and also people who are suffering in the world as a result of war and also the people who suffered in London as a result of the bombing. Perhaps before we begin keep a moment of silence and remember those who have departed this life. Also as we keep this silence, remember those who have suffered in the village of Soham.

Thank you.

It is a pleasure for me to be here today. I have been wearing my Australian hat and someone said 'you are going around incognito today' because wherever I go, being 6ft 7in, I cannot help but be recognised. The other day I was walking across Trafalgar Square and a little man aproached me, he was a tourist and he came from the North of England, stopped me and said I know your face but cannot put a name to it' I said 'Ronnie Corbett' he said 'yes - that's it!'.

But it is good to be here today and one of the reasons why I am pleased to be here is because, first of all, to celebrate with you our heritage, our countryside and the fact that we can still have fetes of this kind, events of this kind, which are truly local and village events. Village life and rural life in England is something that is truly precious and, unfortunately, in this day and age, something that we have to fight for. I was brought up in the countryside and I have seen across my lifetime, as many of you will have seen, the gradual erosion of the countryside. We are not being protectionists when we say that we need to preserve our heritage, we fully recognise the fact that our country needs to develop and that people need housing. There is no question about that, but what we want is sensible planned development. To build, if I may say so, or to propose to build 4,500 new houses on what is greenbelt land in the middle of a rural area and destroy 3 villages going back to the days of the Doomsday Book and beyond is, in my view, total madness.

I am not speaking as a nimby, I do not live in this area, but I do believe that if in fact we lose more of our rural heritage we are all losers. Just one or two simple points - can you imagine putting 4,500 houses with an artificial lake in one of the driest parts of England? We are at the moment, as we are told, facing global warming. Water resources are becoming scarcer and to put an artificial lake there is total madness, nonsense. It is just a ploy of course, and we know very well it will not be able to be used for Olympic purposes and there are also other boating facilities in the immediate area. Is that necessary? Tto build in such a concentrated way without a proper developed infrastructure, hospitals and whatever, is madness. It will already put them under extra pressure which will not be able to be met and existing resources in the area. Just look at cars. 4500 houses probably means 7500 -8000 new cars going on to the A14, which is already over crowded. Is that sensible? Is that sensible when we look at the way in which we are moving in this country towards losing more of our green space and our environment. These are in fact proposals that in fact do not hold water, they do not hold water, it is, if I may say so, a proposal simply to exploit the countryside and to exploit the people who live here.

Now you have a problem. You really do have a problem if you live here and want to protect the countryside. The problem is that there not very many people living out here. That does not mean to say that it is not a good place - it is an excellent place. But you have to really band together to actually stop this and it can be stopped at this stage and, unless you act, you will find people right behind your backs and before you know where you are, you have lost the delightful place in which you live and you will be actually contributing towards the harm of our rural environment.

May I just say one thing, please, please, plese do not think there is nothing you can do. Do not take that attitude. There is something you can do. The first thing you can do, if you have not done it, is please to go across to the tent where it says "Stop the Watermark Development" and register your name and address there as someone who opposes this. The more people that can do that, the better. I would hope that everybody here today would actually do that before they leave this field so that we can say for future generations we played our part in helping England remain the place that we want it to be. We want development, we want the use of brownfield sites, we are not against that, we are not against planned development but we are against this reckless development which is nothing short of rural vandalism, that is what it is in two words - rural vandalism - and I hope you will support me and support everyone who is working here to keep England, rural England, rural England, to preserve our environment and ensure the quality of life for future generations.

Thank you very much - I declare this fete open.