Calling someone a nimby is a divisive denunciation that can easily generate ill-will on either side of an argument. As a basis for calm discussion, it’s a non-starter.
So it was a pity to see Chris Simpson, one of Ceredigion’s enduring Green voices, hare off down this rhetorical blind alley in a Cambrian News letter last week.
Going for the jugular, he labels as “a bunch of nimbys” a whole swathe of people living on the Waun in Aberystwyth because they oppose the threatened swallowing up of that area’s one remaining sizeable and publicly-owned green space by a proposed county council-backed housing estate.
All the residents want is preservation of Waunfawr’s Erw Goch field as a valued recreational area, which is what it’s been for decades. That necessarily involves opposition to surrendering the site to bricks and mortar.
They’re not, however, driven by a blinkered, indifferent not-in-my-back-yardism. Their motivation is precisely the opposite. In demanding preservation of a rare open green space, they’re putting forward the interests of an entire local community.
Chris is also critical of Frankly Speaking. He says he thinks I’ve been “bamboozled” by the protesters.
No, all things considered, I see their case as unassailable.