In August 2022 we were presented with an award for "Health and well-being specialists of the year - London and South East.
Thank you to all our wonderful clients, sending gratitude. We are passionate about mental health and invisible illnesses and hope to continue to raise awareness and offer support for everyone who is struggling in a number of ways.
We believe “movement is medicine” alongside nervous system regulation, therapy and massage and this has been proven by the results my clients and I, following surgery, are seeing.
This is by no means a cure for any condition but offers ways in which an individual may achieve wellbeing in a range of ways. We are also excited to post this after many years fighting to keep a service we strongly feel benefits others yet has been met with so much opposition locally. This award is for all those that felt our services were a threat to the local forest community and challenged us to close a much need mental health service.
Unfortunately we are not taking any bookings for our Glamping Lodge as we have been asked to close the Lodge and Cabin stays by the council.
Our humble little therapy centre, Glamping lodge and cabin spa has been under threat for several years now from the hostility of the local forest residents, parish and Suffolk councils despite successfully running Physical and Mental Health services in the Forest for 8 years.
Much of the hostility centres on who we are and what we do, our tiny therapy business in the Forest which benefits so many, lovers of starry nights and campfires and those passionate about our fitness and therapy services; why would anyone feel the need to destroy that.
The latest planning inspector suggests we are harmful to the natural habitat; how can anyone arrive at such a conclusion about a handful of people sitting in a hot tub in someone’s garden, or a client having a counselling session after trying to take their own life?
This, in the context of a busy working forest attracting thousands of visitors every year able to move freely unencumbered wherever they choose!
The same inspector goes on to say passing visitors to the forest would be offended or disturbed by people taking luggage out of their cars! This perhaps adds insight into the rationale of their reasoning…
Most resident objectors live around a mile from us, backing onto the busy campsite and near to the Forest Centre parking and overflow carpark. Thousands of visitors pour in and out of this central hub every year and throughout the forest, again impacting on the forest tracks (it has been clearly documented that one of the biggest threats to public pathways in Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty is from footfall). Some objectors literally live next door too and in the middle of this busy area. But apparently this is of no consequence, it is the one or two cars which infrequently drive past their property, most of which are well hidden behind substantial hedging, which cause so much alarm and concern. The nearest objector is a quarter of a mile away with no clear sight of us and what we do.
While enjoying AONB status, the forest is an incredibly busy domain. We have just come to the end of yet another prolonged period of harvesting and logging; large noisy intimidating machines literally crash into the forest and tear trees down, log laden lorries thunder up and down unmade tracks not best suited to support this activity. In the 9 years we have lived here, logging activity has been ongoing for much of the time. Yet despite this obvious and sustained impact, the Forestry themselves have publicly objected, citing damage caused by our activities! It is not huge logging machines ripping up the track and forest, no it is clearly the four young ladies in a Fiat 500 trundling through the forest on the way to us looking forward to therapy/fitness and a dip in the hot tub.
Overall the shocking, clearly disproportionate response generates feelings of paranoia: how on earth and for what reason would anyone be concerned about a small vulnerable household of completely non threatening individuals and tiny business that is obviously of negligible negative impact but equally offers such positive benefits to the local community and economy?
The alleged grounds for concern were also the perceived threat to open nesting nightjars and woodlarks; do you happen to know the main threat to these birds? Unleashed dogs and roaming children. We don’t even allow dogs and kids! Another convenient “oversight” by the council. In any event people visit our home and our garden, not bird nesting sites! They have better things to do than chase birds. Incidentally, how many dogs do you think chase through the forest on a daily basis off their leads? What are the council or forestry going to do about that? Nothing of course; that would be too challenging, much easier to pick on the little guy trying to make a living. But this is only another example of the utter nonsense we have had to read over the past few years. Anyway, sadly, it goes without saying despite arranging an ecology report which clearly showed we pose negligible threat to the ecology or environment it was ignored. Perhaps this is why East Suffolk Council only asked us to produce it after the event, knowing full well the likely result; much easier to make the decision you want in the absence of any inconvenient evidence to the contrary.
East Suffolk Council then decided out of the blue to say our garden was agricultural land! The council LIED; they just made something up because it suited their needs, for no other reason than to try and spite a vulnerable household trying to make a living.
We are still stunned that this is how Councils are allowed to operate: they can simply make things up as you want and we are left to try and prove otherwise?! At the very least it is alarming but more so it is frightening; on some level at least, they are supposed to be civil servants, representatives of the people and community not a collection of sinister totalitarian bully boys. It is a disgrace and shameful we were intimidated in this way and had to go to yet more expense and spend more anxious months waiting for yet another clearly biased planning inspector to decide whether they agreed with the truth or the lie!! How can this be? How is this not out and out corruption?
After several appeals since 2015 we then found ourselves in the unenviable position of going to the high court in London for a judicial review of an apparently legally flawed rejection of our appeal and sadly the Judge could see no reason to comment on the planning inspectorates decision.
We are still coming to terms with the frustration of being so vilified by a closed minded few while knowing we enjoy the support of many, a testament to the quality of what we do and offer for grossly exaggerated unfounded reasons.
Our closure is not just an obvious loss to us as a household, but would also represent a loss to the local community of much needed mental health services.
The whole rationale for what we have done was to share some of what we get to enjoy in the forest, in a controlled manageable way, sensitive to the local forest and community. Ironically this is the basis of our success: we are popular because of the privacy and peace offered; we are not scores of tents and pods lined up in a field somewhere.
We have now done what we can and we are very proud of what we have achieved; we have made a positive difference to many peoples’ lives over the years and created quite literally a Forest Haven.
It is deeply upsetting and saddening a few have seen fit to destroy this for no credible reason. But our success is something no one can take away.
We will continue to offer Yoga, Yoga Trapeze, Personal Training and Therapy online and Mobile. Massage can be booked at the Natural Health Centre in Woodbridge. http://nhcwoodbridge.co.uk/
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