Daily Telegraph: Trouble in hand-made kitchen country
If you can't stand the heat...
Mark Wilkinson has made his name and fortune designing beautiful kitchens. Now he wants to build an eco-friendly electricity plant in his Wiltshire village to fund affordable housing. But some locals are up in arms, vandalising his wisteria and complaining about plummeting property prices. David Rowan reports on a very English power struggle.
No one will admit to vandalising Mark and Cynthia Wilkinson's wisteria, but the couple have a pretty good idea who was behind the hate mail. Word gets around in a village like Bromham. Tucked away in a serene Wiltshire valley, this prosperous community of 1,900 people still enjoys its own thriving post office and a remarkably well-stocked convenience store - even if, in the Greyhound Inn, you soon hear those familiar village complaints, over pints of Wadworth 6X, about youngsters forced away by ludicrous property prices.
The trouble for Mark Wilkinson began when he offered a possible solution. Wilkinson, whose internationally renowned handmade kitchens cost from £25,000 to £250,000, is a towering figure in this picture-book part of Wiltshire. He lives in a rambling house near Bromham's 12th-century church, owns almost 80 acres of adjoining land, and employs about 200 people at three sites in the village, from where he and Cynthia run their £20-million furniture empire.
Having spent 24 years in Bromham, it seemed only natural for Wilkinson to share with villagers his excitement on discovering a technology that could recycle his factory waste to give them free electricity, as well as pay for some "green" low-cost housing. Little did he suspect that his proposals "for sustainable living" would provoke a furious local rift that raises far wider questions about the future of English village life.
Wilkinson, 53, calls himself a "dreamer-designer", leaving it to his wife to manage the commercial realities of Mark Wilkinson Furniture (MWF). He designed the first kitchen for Smallbone of Devizes in 1977, leaving four years later to go it alone. Today, his kitchens, bathrooms and individual ornate pieces appeal to celebrities such as David Seaman and Antony Worrall Thompson, and sell in showrooms from Moscow to Chicago.
Walking through a kitchen being photographed at his showroom for a glossy magazine, he explains that his philosophy is about "bringing more friendship, kindness and beauty into people's lives", while minimising his business's ecological "footprint".
"Sustainability" is a word that Wilkinson uses a lot. Beneath ruddy cheeks, his Lord Kitchener moustache twitches animatedly as he denounces today's industrial-waste-disposal processes as "clumsy, uninformed, inelegant and unimaginative". "And then last year," he says, "I found this `Eureka!' company."
The company is a British start-up called Compact Power, which runs a pilot "advanced thermal conversion" power plant at Avonmouth, Bristol, that turns waste materials into heat and electricity.
Wilkinson, whose factories throw out 20 tonnes of waste each week, was intrigued, particularly when he learnt that a plant the size of a medium-sized warehouse could, in theory, generate enough electricity to power 2,000 homes. "They had technically the most advanced process for dealing with waste material in the world, and they were English," he enthuses.
After sounding out the parish council, he wrote to Bromham's residents in February proposing a scheme that could make the village "a beacon of sustainable living for the 21st century". If he installed a power plant in a disused quarry that he owned, and relocated his factory alongside it, he could process not only MWF's waste, but also that of other businesses in the county.
As well as providing free local electricity, the plant would generate good profits - £150,000 a year, by one estimate - that would pay for affordable housing. An unspecified number of homes would be built, to be owned by a village-controlled "community trust". It was, he stressed, "a chance for the community to be in control".
A Wilkinson-appointed team set about preparing the village for change, bearing copies of E F Schumacher's book Small Is Beautiful. "Can Bromham afford to stay just the same," its submission to the parish newsletter put it, "or is it right to plan for our children and grandchildren's future?"
Wilkinson insisted that he would never act unilaterally. "The dream was that we'd involve the village in a discussion, and the village would come together and establish what it wanted," he says. "It was always my promise that if the village didn't want the project, it would never even go to planning. I've no wish to alienate sectors of the village that I intend to die in."
That, however, was not to be. Soon after the letter went out, a group of villagers formed a pressure group, Defend Our Village Environment (DOVE), to fight what Wilkinson saw as his "beautiful and virtuous circle". Critics found no end of reasons to oppose his "incinerator": toxic emissions from dioxins and mercury would threaten health and local agriculture; trucked-in waste would generate extra traffic; property would be devalued; a greenfield site would be lost to a claimed 200 houses. A few locals who disagreed with DOVE, meanwhile, set up a rival campaign called LOVE (Let Our Village Evolve), whose posters did not stay up for long.
It counted little that Compact Power denied the health claims, pointing out that the Environment Agency has singled out its Avonmouth plant as a model of low emissions. Nor had the project team suggested how many houses might be built. Yet soon, Wilkinson was being insulted in the village shop and receiving what he calls "nastiness" in the post.
The journalist Roger Cook, a family friend, has seen the "awful" hate mail. "I found the letters deeply offensive, and I'm a fairly gnarled old hack," Cook says. "Mark and Cynthia are very good citizens of Bromham, and they've taken it very personally. All Mark wanted to do was listen to what they thought."
Wilkinson did not expect the abuse, but believes that he understands what prompted it. "There's this fear of change, of the perceived devaluation of properties," he says. "On the contrary - I think it would have been a project of such significance that their house prices would have increased. Houses near the Eden Project in Cornwall aren't cheap now - but they were."
Opponents insist that their hostility is not personal. "I've lived here for 10 years and have never met the man, so I've got no personal gripes," says Nic Jennings, 42, a founder member of DOVE who took medical retirement from the Prison Service. "We've investigated his proposal, and got hold of a lot of paperwork. Bromham isn't the sort of place for dangerous clinical waste. There's also the housing, and its effect on property values. What I've paid for this place could have bought a much bigger property elsewhere. And I don't want it spoilt."
Others allege a more mercenary motive. "I can see from a business perspective what he's doing - trying to make more money from his land," says one villager active in community life, who asks not to be named. "But why build an incinerator in a village rather than on an industrial estate? Estate agents tell me the house-price drop would be for the long term." The man adds knowingly: "People have questioned why he's still here and not on a trading estate. Is it to publicise the fact that his kitchens are made in `ye olde country village'?"
Those who know the Wilkinsons well insist that they wish only to benefit their community. A company executive points out that MWF could save thousands each year by using a franking machine, but instead buys £50,000 of stamps to support the village post office. Others point out that they quietly sponsor local people who are in need, for instance by paying university or medical fees, "but would be horrified if that was reported".
Matters came to a head on April 27, when the parish council's annual general meeting debated a motion "fiercely oppos[ing] the proposals" and calling on Wilkinson "to irrevocably withdraw" them. The motion was carried by 171 votes to four, with just seven abstentions. With that, Wilkinson (who stayed away) declared that his plan would move no further.
Not every villager believes that he was given a fair hearing, and the issue remains a conversation point on local streets. "I feel cheated," says Jane Paget, who works at a residential special needs school. "I've had 20 or 30 villagers say to me, `I wasn't for it, I wasn't against it, but I'd have liked to find out more.' This could have been a fantastic opportunity for the village, or not, as the case may be. But now we'll never know."
Alex Ross, who runs a small electrical business, was one of the four who opposed the motion. "Normally, you'd get three men and a dog at a parish AGM; this time there were 200 people. It was hijacked by one person who took over the meeting and misinterpreted the facts to scare people. The village either evolves or dies - and that discussion has been cut short."
Mike Edwards, who is retired, has his own theory about what split the village. "There's quite a bit of jealousy," he says. "There's no real reason why people should be against Mark Wilkinson other than the fact that he's successful."
In the meantime, Wilkinson has decided to restrict his dreaming to less inflammatory arenas than perceived property prices. After more than a year's work, he unveiled a kitchen commissioned by the National Trust, which was displayed at the Daily Telegraph/House & Garden Fair at Olympia last week. He discusses its fine design details - an Egyptian hockey-stick cornice; a Georgian cockbead - in the same passionate tones as he explains his broken dream of a sustainable energy project.
"My crime is daring to dream," he says of his abandoned plan. "For all the arguments about health fears or traffic, the bottom line was `My house price is going to plummet'. But it would have been a benchmark scheme."
He is disappointed, he says, but proud that his arguments are finally receiving a hearing in these pages. "And we will be here to talk to people from other communities who want such a scheme. Because," he adds with a boyish glint, "it is a beautiful thing."
(Daily Telegraph, Property section cover, July 3 2004)
Mark Wilkinson has made his name and fortune designing beautiful kitchens. Now he wants to build an eco-friendly electricity plant in his Wiltshire village to fund affordable housing. But some locals are up in arms, vandalising his wisteria and complaining about plummeting property prices. David Rowan reports on a very English power struggle.
No one will admit to vandalising Mark and Cynthia Wilkinson's wisteria, but the couple have a pretty good idea who was behind the hate mail. Word gets around in a village like Bromham. Tucked away in a serene Wiltshire valley, this prosperous community of 1,900 people still enjoys its own thriving post office and a remarkably well-stocked convenience store - even if, in the Greyhound Inn, you soon hear those familiar village complaints, over pints of Wadworth 6X, about youngsters forced away by ludicrous property prices.
The trouble for Mark Wilkinson began when he offered a possible solution. Wilkinson, whose internationally renowned handmade kitchens cost from £25,000 to £250,000, is a towering figure in this picture-book part of Wiltshire. He lives in a rambling house near Bromham's 12th-century church, owns almost 80 acres of adjoining land, and employs about 200 people at three sites in the village, from where he and Cynthia run their £20-million furniture empire.
Having spent 24 years in Bromham, it seemed only natural for Wilkinson to share with villagers his excitement on discovering a technology that could recycle his factory waste to give them free electricity, as well as pay for some "green" low-cost housing. Little did he suspect that his proposals "for sustainable living" would provoke a furious local rift that raises far wider questions about the future of English village life.
Wilkinson, 53, calls himself a "dreamer-designer", leaving it to his wife to manage the commercial realities of Mark Wilkinson Furniture (MWF). He designed the first kitchen for Smallbone of Devizes in 1977, leaving four years later to go it alone. Today, his kitchens, bathrooms and individual ornate pieces appeal to celebrities such as David Seaman and Antony Worrall Thompson, and sell in showrooms from Moscow to Chicago.
Walking through a kitchen being photographed at his showroom for a glossy magazine, he explains that his philosophy is about "bringing more friendship, kindness and beauty into people's lives", while minimising his business's ecological "footprint".
"Sustainability" is a word that Wilkinson uses a lot. Beneath ruddy cheeks, his Lord Kitchener moustache twitches animatedly as he denounces today's industrial-waste-disposal processes as "clumsy, uninformed, inelegant and unimaginative". "And then last year," he says, "I found this `Eureka!' company."
The company is a British start-up called Compact Power, which runs a pilot "advanced thermal conversion" power plant at Avonmouth, Bristol, that turns waste materials into heat and electricity.
Wilkinson, whose factories throw out 20 tonnes of waste each week, was intrigued, particularly when he learnt that a plant the size of a medium-sized warehouse could, in theory, generate enough electricity to power 2,000 homes. "They had technically the most advanced process for dealing with waste material in the world, and they were English," he enthuses.
After sounding out the parish council, he wrote to Bromham's residents in February proposing a scheme that could make the village "a beacon of sustainable living for the 21st century". If he installed a power plant in a disused quarry that he owned, and relocated his factory alongside it, he could process not only MWF's waste, but also that of other businesses in the county.
As well as providing free local electricity, the plant would generate good profits - £150,000 a year, by one estimate - that would pay for affordable housing. An unspecified number of homes would be built, to be owned by a village-controlled "community trust". It was, he stressed, "a chance for the community to be in control".
A Wilkinson-appointed team set about preparing the village for change, bearing copies of E F Schumacher's book Small Is Beautiful. "Can Bromham afford to stay just the same," its submission to the parish newsletter put it, "or is it right to plan for our children and grandchildren's future?"
Wilkinson insisted that he would never act unilaterally. "The dream was that we'd involve the village in a discussion, and the village would come together and establish what it wanted," he says. "It was always my promise that if the village didn't want the project, it would never even go to planning. I've no wish to alienate sectors of the village that I intend to die in."
That, however, was not to be. Soon after the letter went out, a group of villagers formed a pressure group, Defend Our Village Environment (DOVE), to fight what Wilkinson saw as his "beautiful and virtuous circle". Critics found no end of reasons to oppose his "incinerator": toxic emissions from dioxins and mercury would threaten health and local agriculture; trucked-in waste would generate extra traffic; property would be devalued; a greenfield site would be lost to a claimed 200 houses. A few locals who disagreed with DOVE, meanwhile, set up a rival campaign called LOVE (Let Our Village Evolve), whose posters did not stay up for long.
It counted little that Compact Power denied the health claims, pointing out that the Environment Agency has singled out its Avonmouth plant as a model of low emissions. Nor had the project team suggested how many houses might be built. Yet soon, Wilkinson was being insulted in the village shop and receiving what he calls "nastiness" in the post.
The journalist Roger Cook, a family friend, has seen the "awful" hate mail. "I found the letters deeply offensive, and I'm a fairly gnarled old hack," Cook says. "Mark and Cynthia are very good citizens of Bromham, and they've taken it very personally. All Mark wanted to do was listen to what they thought."
Wilkinson did not expect the abuse, but believes that he understands what prompted it. "There's this fear of change, of the perceived devaluation of properties," he says. "On the contrary - I think it would have been a project of such significance that their house prices would have increased. Houses near the Eden Project in Cornwall aren't cheap now - but they were."
Opponents insist that their hostility is not personal. "I've lived here for 10 years and have never met the man, so I've got no personal gripes," says Nic Jennings, 42, a founder member of DOVE who took medical retirement from the Prison Service. "We've investigated his proposal, and got hold of a lot of paperwork. Bromham isn't the sort of place for dangerous clinical waste. There's also the housing, and its effect on property values. What I've paid for this place could have bought a much bigger property elsewhere. And I don't want it spoilt."
Others allege a more mercenary motive. "I can see from a business perspective what he's doing - trying to make more money from his land," says one villager active in community life, who asks not to be named. "But why build an incinerator in a village rather than on an industrial estate? Estate agents tell me the house-price drop would be for the long term." The man adds knowingly: "People have questioned why he's still here and not on a trading estate. Is it to publicise the fact that his kitchens are made in `ye olde country village'?"
Those who know the Wilkinsons well insist that they wish only to benefit their community. A company executive points out that MWF could save thousands each year by using a franking machine, but instead buys £50,000 of stamps to support the village post office. Others point out that they quietly sponsor local people who are in need, for instance by paying university or medical fees, "but would be horrified if that was reported".
Matters came to a head on April 27, when the parish council's annual general meeting debated a motion "fiercely oppos[ing] the proposals" and calling on Wilkinson "to irrevocably withdraw" them. The motion was carried by 171 votes to four, with just seven abstentions. With that, Wilkinson (who stayed away) declared that his plan would move no further.
Not every villager believes that he was given a fair hearing, and the issue remains a conversation point on local streets. "I feel cheated," says Jane Paget, who works at a residential special needs school. "I've had 20 or 30 villagers say to me, `I wasn't for it, I wasn't against it, but I'd have liked to find out more.' This could have been a fantastic opportunity for the village, or not, as the case may be. But now we'll never know."
Alex Ross, who runs a small electrical business, was one of the four who opposed the motion. "Normally, you'd get three men and a dog at a parish AGM; this time there were 200 people. It was hijacked by one person who took over the meeting and misinterpreted the facts to scare people. The village either evolves or dies - and that discussion has been cut short."
Mike Edwards, who is retired, has his own theory about what split the village. "There's quite a bit of jealousy," he says. "There's no real reason why people should be against Mark Wilkinson other than the fact that he's successful."
In the meantime, Wilkinson has decided to restrict his dreaming to less inflammatory arenas than perceived property prices. After more than a year's work, he unveiled a kitchen commissioned by the National Trust, which was displayed at the Daily Telegraph/House & Garden Fair at Olympia last week. He discusses its fine design details - an Egyptian hockey-stick cornice; a Georgian cockbead - in the same passionate tones as he explains his broken dream of a sustainable energy project.
"My crime is daring to dream," he says of his abandoned plan. "For all the arguments about health fears or traffic, the bottom line was `My house price is going to plummet'. But it would have been a benchmark scheme."
He is disappointed, he says, but proud that his arguments are finally receiving a hearing in these pages. "And we will be here to talk to people from other communities who want such a scheme. Because," he adds with a boyish glint, "it is a beautiful thing."
(Daily Telegraph, Property section cover, July 3 2004)
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