David Bangs | |
---|---|
Occupation | Field naturalist, conservationist and author |
Nationality | British |
Notable works | The Land of the Brighton Line |
David Bangs is a field naturalist, social historian, public artist, author and conservationist. He has written extensively on the countryside management, both historically and present day in the English county of Sussex. [1]
Bangs worked as a public mural painter in central London from 1980 to 1990. [2]
Bangs has campaigned on a number of fronts to protect access rights to the Sussex Downland. [3] He is the co-founder of Keep Our Downs Public. [4] [5] [6] [7] In 2016 councils across Sussex threatened to privatise large areas of the Downs, including Brighton Council's Downland Estate, [8] [9] Worthing Council's Downland Estate, and Eastbourne Council's Downland Estate. [10] Bangs was in the leadership teams of successful campaigns to prevent their sale from public ownership to private ownership. [11]
Bangs was co-leader of the Sussex Access Campaign and its programme of mass trespasses that helped build pressure for the enactment of a partial right to roam in the CROW Act (Countryside and Rights of Way Act, 2000). [12] [13] [14] [15] More recently (2021) he has co-founded the Landscapes of Freedom project and collaborated with Nick Hayes and Guy Shrubsole to protest the short fallings of the CROW act, which Shrubsole claims still only gives the public access to 8% of land and 3% of rivers in England. [12] [16]
Landscapes of Freedom organised a mass trespass of three hundred plus people on 24 July 2021 where 300 people walked from the Waterhall, Brighton to Pangdean Bottom to protest the statistic that Hayes called a "national scandal". [17] Bangs said reconnecting people with nature is "crucial for stopping global ecocide". In a speech given at the event he said,
“If people cannot be in nature, people can’t defend it. What the eye cannot see, the heart cannot grieve. Brighton council must designate all downland under its management as statutory access land”. [18]
On 24 September 2022, Landscapes of Freedom organised another mass trespass of a similar scale under the banner ‘Worth Forest is worth saving’ – to stand against plans for a Center Parcs holiday resort at the ancient woodland of Oldhouse Warren. [19] [20] [21] The campaign was ultimately successful and Center Parcs pulled out of the project citing biodiversity concerns. [22]
Bangs has co-led other successful campaigns such as 'Defend Council Housing' which campaigned against the privatisation (stock transfer) of the City of Brighton's council housing (2005–2007). [23] [24]
Bangs has appeared on Radio 4's Today Programme, Farming Today and Pebble Mill at One and he has also appeared on the BBC1 programme Countryfile.
Bangs has written three books, Whitehawk Hill: Where the Turf meets the Surf, a landscape history and natural history of Brighton’s most remarkable Downland survival (2004), [25] A Freedom to Roam Guide to the Brighton Downs: from Shoreham to Newhaven and Beeding to Lewes (2008) [26] [27] [28] and The Land of the Brighton Line: A Field Guide to the Middle Sussex and Southeast Surrey Weald (2018). [29]
His first two works concern themselves with fauna, flora and land ownership of the Sussex Downland around the city of Brighton, England, and the threats posed to them by farms, housing developments and other socioeconomic forces. [30] His latest work, The Land of the Brighton Line, is about the Sussex Weald. [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] The work is of importance as reviewer Ted Benton notes as it "expresses a deeply engaged and embodied presence in the environment" from "someone who over many years has walked the footpaths, occasionally trespassed, counted the wildflowers and listened to the birds". Benton continues "Bangs seems able to recount and explain the losses while continuing to take delight in what remains. The threats, in general terms, are those affecting historic landscapes everywhere – public access and enjoyment, biodiversity and aesthetics harmed or destroyed by advancing urbanisation and agribusiness-driven intensification" [36]
He has a website for his third book, Land of the Brighton Line, and has co-produced a video describing the ownership and ecological status of the Brighton Downs, Brightons Big Secret: The Downland We Own.
He hosted the BBC2 programme This Land: Coppers and Bangs, which was recommended in The Times "Today's Viewing Choice" [37] and The Independent's "Pick of the Day". The Independent's review described Bangs as, "A committed advocate of the right to roam" and said, "Bangs has made it his mission to compile a companion to the wildlife of the Sussex Downs, which he feels is endangered by modern developments". [38]
Bangs created many public murals in central London from 1980 to 1990, including contributions to the Brixton murals and a mural commemorating the Tolpuddle Martyrs. [39] Photos of his murals, painted between 1977 and 1990, are on display on the For Walls With Tongues project. His murals often took inspiration from nature.
Bangs is an eco-socialist. He recognises capitalism as a system that is destroying nature and the necessary habitats for nature's ongoing survival.
Bangs feels a strong attachment to the county of Sussex and his family moved back to Hove in 1958, when he was seven. From nine or ten years old his main preoccupation has been with the countryside. He went to Reading University and then to St Martin's College of Art, where he says he was "untrained" at being an artist. [40] He was one of the 'Huntley Street 14' with Piers Corbyn who got charged with conspiracy after the eviction of a big squat in 1978. The charges were dropped. [41] [42] He returned to Brighton after 25 years away, largely living in Kings Cross, London. He has been a public artist (mostly painting murals), a care worker, and a gardener.
Brighton and Hove is a unitary authority with city status in East Sussex, England. There are multiple villages alongside the seaside resorts of Brighton and Hove in the district. It is administered by Brighton and Hove City Council, which is currently under Labour majority control.
Falmer is a small village and civil parish in the Lewes District of East Sussex, England, lying between Brighton and Lewes, approximately five miles (8 km) north-east of the former. It is also the site of Brighton & Hove Albion's Falmer Stadium.
The South Downs are a range of chalk hills in the south-eastern coastal counties of England that extends for about 260 sq mi (670 km2) across the south-eastern coastal counties of England from the Itchen valley of Hampshire in the west to Beachy Head, in the Eastbourne Downland Estate, East Sussex, in the east. The Downs are bounded on the northern side by a steep escarpment, from whose crest there are extensive views northwards across the Weald. The South Downs National Park forms a much larger area than the chalk range of the South Downs, and includes large parts of the Weald.
The South Downs National Park is England's newest national park, designated on 31 March 2010. The park, covering an area of 1,627 square kilometres (628 sq mi) in southern England, stretches for 140 kilometres (87 mi) from Winchester in the west to Eastbourne in the east through the counties of Hampshire, West Sussex and East Sussex. The national park covers the chalk hills of the South Downs and a substantial part of a separate physiographic region, the western Weald, with its heavily wooded sandstone and clay hills and vales. The South Downs Way spans the entire length of the park and is the only National Trail that lies wholly within a national park.
Ditchling is a village and civil parish in the Lewes District of East Sussex, England. The village is contained within the boundaries of the South Downs National Park; the order confirming the establishment of the park was signed in Ditchling.
Hassocks is a village and civil parish in the Mid Sussex District of West Sussex, England. Its name is believed to derive from the tufts of grass found in the surrounding fields.
Kingston near Lewes is a village and civil parish in the Lewes District of East Sussex, England. The village is mentioned in the Domesday Book and is located two miles (3.2 km) south of Lewes and is nestled in the South Downs. The parish is par of two Sites of Special Scientific Interest: the Lewes Brooks and Kingston Escarpment and Iford Hill.
Westmeston is a village and civil parish in the Lewes District of East Sussex, England heavily dependent in amenities on larger Ditchling to the near-immediate northwest. It is four miles (6 km) south-southeast of Burgess Hill and (10 km) west of Lewes, on the northern slopes of the South Downs.
Pyecombe is a village and civil parish in the Mid Sussex District of West Sussex, England. Pyecombe is located 7 miles (11 km) to the north of Brighton. The civil parish covers an area of 887 hectares and has a population of 200, increasing at the 2011 Census to a population of 237.
Woodingdean is an eastern suburb of the city of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, separated from the main part of the city by downland and the Brighton Racecourse. The name Woodingdean came from Woodendean Farm which was situated in the south end of what is now Ovingdean.
Hangleton is a suburb of Brighton and Hove, in the ceremonial county of East Sussex, England. The area was developed in the 1930s after it was incorporated into the Borough of Hove, but has ancient origins: its parish church was founded in the 11th century and retains 12th-century fabric; the medieval manor house is Hove's oldest secular building. The village became depopulated in the medieval era and the church fell into ruins, and the population in the isolated hilltop parish only reached 100 in the early 20th century; but rapid 20th-century development resulted in more than 6,000 people living in Hangleton in 1951 and over 9,000 in 1961. By 2013, the population exceeded 14,000.
Mile Oak is a locality forming the northern part of the former parish of Portslade in the northwest corner of the city of Brighton and Hove, England. Now mostly residential, but originally an area of good-quality agricultural land, it covers the area north of Portslade village as far as the urban boundary.
Ditchling Beacon is the highest point in East Sussex, England, with an elevation of 248 m (814 ft). It is south of Ditchling and to the north-east of Brighton. It is a large chalk hill with a particularly steep northern face, covered with open grassland and sheep-grazing areas. It is the third-highest point on the South Downs, behind Butser Hill and Crown Tegleaze.
Westdene is an area of the city of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex. It is an affluent northern suburb of the city, west of Patcham, the A23 and the London to Brighton railway line, north of Withdean and northeast of West Blatchington. It is on the Brighton side of the historic parish boundary between Brighton and Hove and is served by Preston Park railway station. It is known for its greenery and woodland and is very close to the South Downs, from which it is separated by the Brighton Bypass, and was built on the slopes of two hills.
The Worthing Downland Estate, Worthing Downs or Worthing Downland, is an area of land in the South Downs National Park in West Sussex, England, close to the town of Worthing. It was bought by the public, following threats to the beauty spot of Cissbury Ring and the surrounding farmland, which led to a public campaign purchases in the 1930s. It is currently owned and managed, on behalf of the public, by Worthing Borough Council.
Beacon Hill is an 18.6-hectare (46-acre) Local Nature Reserve in Rottingdean, on the eastern outskirts of Brighton in East Sussex. It is owned and managed by Brighton and Hove Council.
Benfield Hill is an 11.8-hectare (29-acre) Local Nature Reserve (LNR) on the northern outskirts of Hove in East Sussex and is within the boundaries of the South Downs National Park. It is owned and managed by Brighton and Hove City Council.
Ladies Mile is a 13.6-hectare (34-acre) Local Nature Reserve to the east of Patcham, on the northern outskirts of Brighton in East Sussex. The area was designated in 2003 and is owned and managed by Brighton and Hove City Council.
Nick Hayes is a British writer, illustrator, and campaigner for land access. He has written a number of graphic novels and a non-fiction book, The Book of Trespass.
Guy Shrubsole is a British researcher, writer and campaigner. He wrote Who Owns England?: How We Lost Our Green and Pleasant Land, and How to Take It Back, and, most recently, The Lost Rainforests of Britain.
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