Except that it ISN'T plain wood.There's a length of blue boarding where the old infirmary wall used to be, and now it's covered in ads for Blavatnik, trying to brainwash us into believing what wonderful work they're doing to promote good government. Nothing about their total disregard for public opinion when foisting their monstrous new building on the people of Jericho, or their total disrespect for the dead by moving 700 bodies from their graves and storing them in cardboard boxes in a warehouse.

Be that as it may (and I share your anger about the development), as a picture it's better without the (distracting) blotch of blue.

I am a pictorial and not a documentary photographer, and if this were mine, the picture itself would be the objective and the important thing, not the warts-and-all reality. If it's better as a picture with the warts removed, then I'll remove them.

I don't mind removing cars and people, but I want my pictorial record to be authentic.
In any case, I don't see that blue as a "wart", as it's offset by the blue sky.

It isn't offset by the sky, and the bright colour immediately catches the eye and leads it into the bottom right-hand corner, where there's nothing of interest, away from the main subject - the blossom and the building behind.

You must have a roving eye.

No more than anyone else. I am merely applying your own rule of judgement that in a picture, the eye should not be drawn, simultaneously, in two directions.

In this case the eye is distracted by something ugly and intrusive which may be there in reality but (as you say) shouldn't. In my view, the desire for absolute authenticity in your pictorial record is insufficient reason to allow a small but intrusive eyesore to mar an otherwise beautiful picture.

It is every reason. These pictures are to show the beauty that was here before Blavatnik reared its ugly head. The small piece of blue fence marks the first stage of the Blavatnik intrusion. It is now extended right along the street, and the cherry tree has already gone. There's a big hole where the graveyard used to be, and soon there will be a towering glass monstrosity looming over Jericho.

Dashing the hopes I'd entertained of getting the same shot.

You at least had and took the opportunity to capture it while it still existed.

I think the Blavatnik architects have designed their own tree to replace, but it looks quite puny in the pictures and will do little to hide the monster behind it.

ONE puny tree is all they've managed so far.

And now a pink pen, which might make a suitable frame for some clematis.