Its been a rollercoaster few days.
The inability to get the ponies out of the yard along with the lack of communication from Harlow Council has been really getting us (and the ponies down)... Not going out hacking is the doggie equivalent of not being taken for a walk for ponies.
So we decided to take our campaign direct to the decision makers and on Sunday we submitted a question to be heard at the Harlow Council cabinet meeting taking place on Thursday 13th July.
You can read the question and response on YourHarlow
Just two hours before the cabinet meeting, we received our first communication from the councillors since 14th June - They were offering to organise a meeting with them, us and Natural England. We have responded to the councillors to understand whether the purpose of the meeting is to explore how hacking could be permitted or whether it is simply to reiterate that they will not be looking to review their decision and await their response.
On Friday we had two very important and exciting calls.
The first was from Horse and Hound magazine who were interested in sharing our story. We have given them our details and they have contacted Harlow Council press office for a statement so we hope to see that article appearing soon.
The second was from ITV Anglia news, who were also interested in covering our story and again they had contacted Harlow Council press office to get their side of the story too.
We were so grateful to ITV Anglia, who today came to visit us, hear our story and take a look around the area in question. The interview will be appearing on ITV Anglia news tonight, between 6pm and 7pm so please have a look if you are able to. We will try to upload the interview here tomorrow as well.
Obviously, none of this guarantees us a successful outcome, so we still really need your help and support in sharing our petition, making people aware of the campaign and keeping us in the public eye.
It feels like progress is being made, but we've been here before only to be shot down so we wont get too optimistic until we see the changes take place.
Thank you all for signing and sharing, it really does mean so much to us.