Shropshire Council's Lib Dem leader condemns clearance of natural habitat at Shelve

Shelve Church, Shropshire

Heather Kidd, the Liberal Democrat leader of Shropshire Council, has spoken to the Powys newspaper County Times about the destruction of natural habitat in her large rural ward.

The Times says a field has been wholly cleared of gorse and scrub, to the dismay of people in Shelve and Pennerley.

Heather Kidd told the newspaper:

"No one seems to know who was responsible," said Councillor Kidd.

"I spoke to the planning department of Shropshire Council and as the site is not an SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest) or covered by any other protection, normal enforcement procedures did not apply.

"However, whoever did this overstepped the mark by fencing the whole area off, telling residents to ‘keep out’ as the land is crossed by a statutory public footpath.

"Nobody has the right to this, so I’ve persuaded the countryside department of Shropshire Council to reinstate the public footpath signs so that the public continues to have access across this land. They are also marking this as a right-of-way on the official maps.

"We now need to work with local environmental organisations and societies to see if we can find a way of preventing this sort of destruction in the future."

This saddening news story reminds me of the time I was walking the stretch of Offa's Dyke Path between Hay and Knighton (for a second time, as I had enjoyed it so much the first) and came across a field that was plastered with signs threatening walkers, even though the Path ran through it.

When I reached Knight and the Offa's Dyke Centre a day or two later, I reported the signs. They asked if I could give a map reference – and I could because I had studied for the Map Reader merit badge in the Cubs. I've appreciated the potential radicalism of the Scouting Movement ever since that day.

Anyway, this story at least gives me the excuse to post a photo of what Pevsner calls Shelve's "sweet little rubble-stone church", which dates from 1840.

Anger in Shropshire as Bentlawnt loses its post box and mice take over the nearest alternative

This just in from Shropshire Live:

Anger is mounting in the small Shropshire village of Bentlawnt as residents remain without a post box, months after its sudden removal, with Royal Mail failing to respond to repeated pleas for its return.

The essential village service was removed from its position outside the old shop without any community consultation. Despite persistent lobbying, local residents and politicians say they have been completely ignored by the postal giant.

Bentlwant's councillor happens to be Heather Kidd, the Liberal Democrat leader of Shropshire Council. She is quoted in the story:

"What worries me is that the now privatised Royal Mail now think they have carte blanche to remove these boxes. This is particularly vexing in rural areas like ours where boxes are few and far between."

It also quotes a concerned local resident:

"The nearest box to Bentlawnt is outside Stapeley Vets, but it is unusable as it is infested with mice, which eat the letters. Nobody, including the vets, uses it."

Consulting my files, I find I don't have a photo of the missing Bentawnt post box but do have one of the mouse-ridden box outside Stapeley Vets.

Heather Kidd welcomes project to restore habitats at old industrial sites in rural Shropshire

A new nature recovery project, the Rescuing Rocks and Overgrown Relics scheme, is will restore natural habitats at four sites in the Shropshire Hills. The locations involved include Poles Coppice in Pontesbury, Snailbeach and The Bog.

The work will include scrub management and coppicing to expose rocky habitats that support species like slow worms, grayling butterflies and bird's-foot-trefoil. 

It will be carried out by Shropshire Council's outdoor partnership team and the Shropshire Hills National Landscape team, with help from volunteers.

Heather Kidd, the Liberal Democrat leader of Shropshire Council, told BBC News she is delighted by the project:

"Bringing these historic sites back to life for both nature and people is a fantastic example of partnership working in the Shropshire Hills.

"It's especially welcome that this important work is being funded by Defra, supporting our shared commitment to nature recovery without placing additional pressure on local council budgets."

Why the road through the Hope Valley road was closed to traffic while I was in Shropshire

I went to Bishop's Castle twice while I was on holiday in Shrewsbury. Because the A488 through the Hope Valley was closed, the buses were diverted via the road that runs through the villages of Snailbeach and Stiperstones - hairpin bends and all.

This video shows what was happening in the Hope Valley. The road there was laid out in the 1830s, and heavy lorries have been taking an increasing toll of it in recent years. Heather Kidd, the local councillor who appears in it, is the Liberal Democrat leader of Shropshire Council.

A page from UK Fossils tells you what is so interesting about the geology of the Hope Valley. The woods in the valley are, of course, known for their media-savvy dormice.

Why Snailbeach and the Stiperstones saw the best Lib Dem result last Thursday

The candidate who won the highest percentage vote in any contest last Thursday was the Liberal Democrat Heather Kidd in Shropshire Council's Chirbury & Worthen ward. She received 71.1 per cent of the votes cast, despite having Conservative, Labour, Green and Reform opponents.

Chirbury & Worthen is a large rural ward which takes in the western flank of - you know what's coming - the Stiperstones, including the former lead-mining village of Snailbeach.

But stay with me. This post isn't just an excuse for quoting some descriptive writing about Shropshire, because the second passage includes a bit of history that may be one reason that Liberals do so well in this corner of the county.

Nearer the Welsh border Chirbury & Worthen is lush and pastoral, but that's not so true of the area close to the Stiperstones.

Even today, Snailbeach has something of the feel of the Wild West - a shanty town thrown up to accommodate a mining boom. When I first knew it in the 1980s, before its startling white slagheaps had been landscaped, that feeling was much stronger.

Anyway, here is Malcolm Saville writing in the Lone Pine story Not Scarlet But Gold in 1962:

Between the lower, western slopes of the Stiperstones and two mountains called Condon and Stapley is a stretch of desolate country called by some "The Land of Dereliction".

It is well named, for from the heather of this lonely moorland, treacherous with bogs, the gaunt arms of ruined mine shafts rise through the mist above slag heaps and pools of stagnant water. 

The Romans mined all this land for lead long, long before man came back in the last century, to this haunted corner of Shropshire. These miners tore up the earth, built engine houses, sank shafts and buried the golden gorse under piles of rubbish which may still be seen today.

And in 1944, in his Quietest Under the Sun, John Wood wrote of "a tract scarred with the waste of disused lead and barytes mines". He added:

Sad to say, this became in the between-wars period one of the most utterly derelict areas in Britain proportionate to its size.

That I can believe. The district seems to have been too remote to interest even the scrap merchants, and once the lead mines closed it must have been hugely overpopulated. There wasn't much work, and it's not good farming country.

And here is the part that may help explain last Thursday's result:

It is a point of interest that when these now abandoned enterprises were developed the labour power was brought from the tin mines of Cornwall, and even today the descendants of those Cornishmen make the valley a strong Nonconformist and radical enclave in an Anglican and conservative countryside. 

Two to share leadership of Lib Dem group on Shropshire council

Shropshire Council's Liberal Democrat group is to have two leaders in the run up to next year's elections, reports the Shropshire Star before its paywall kicks in.

The current group leader Roger Evans, the councillor for Longden, is to share the leadership with Heather Kidd, who represents Chirbury and Worthen.

As well as scoring some remarkable local by-election victories in the last two years, the Lib Dems polled more votes across the county at the general election than any other party.

This saw them hold Helen Morgan's seat in North Shropshire and come close to winning South Shropshire, where Matthew Green was the candidate.

Stiperstones post office to close this month

BBC News reports:

Four outreach post offices in south Shropshire are set to close this month.

Marton, Longden, Stiperstones and Wentnor only open for a few hours each week.

But the Post Office has said the services will cease due to "very low customer usage".

The report quotes the Lib Dem councillor Heather Kidd, whose ward includes Marton:

"The pub's gone, the village shop's gone, there's nowhere else to gather.

"It's a focal point for everyone to come together and have a coffee and touch base once a week." 

It's does make you wonder how the rural poor and elderly manage to live these days.

For a Malcolm Saville reader, it's tempting to identify Stiperstones post office with Jenny Harman's home in the Lone Pine Club stories, Barton Beach post office.

But I remember Saville's younger son, the Revd Jeremy Saville, telling a meeting of the Malcolm Saville Society that he did not think his father had visited the Stiperstones when he wrote the first book he set there (Seven White Gates, 1944). The book's eerie atmosphere owed a lot to his reading of Mary Webb.

In any case, I suspect Stiperstones was less a village in those days than a scattered hillside township of former miners' smallholdings.

Let's end with a picture of me at Stiperstones post office 30 years ago almost to the day.

Concert pianist elected chair of South Shropshire Lib Dems

The Shropshire Star has put up a paywall, so we go instead to the Ludlow & Tenbury Wells Advertiser:

A concert pianist who has been elected to chair the Liberal Democrats for the new South Shropshire constituency.

David Gaukroger, who has been chair of the Ludlow Town Lib Dems since 2011 and a former Cleobury Mortimer councillor, replaces Councillor Heather Kidd MBE. 

Mr Gaukroger is well known in South Shropshire for his recent Flanders and Swann concerts with tenor Kim Begley in Ludlow’s Assembly Rooms, and has just performed in ‘A Christmas Carol’, in aid of MND research. 

“After Helen Morgan MP’s by-election triumph in North Shropshire - and our two stunning recent council by-election wins here in Worfield, and in Alveley and Claverley - it’s clear voters across Shropshire are turning to the Lib Dems," he said.

"For too long the Conservatives have taken voters here for granted.”

“South Shropshire had a Lib Dem MP, Matthew Green just a few years ago. I’m sure that with our parliamentary candidate Chris Naylor - who lives in All Stretton, in the heart of the constituency - we’ll be winning South Shropshire back again soon.”

If that sounds overconfident, remember that the president of South Shropshire Conservatives recently said much the same thing:

The outcome of the Worfield by-election carries significant implications for the Conservative Party. It was one of the safest divisions in South Shropshire (formerly Ludlow). Losing there, with such a strong swing against and no impediments to the campaign goes further than the lessons from North Shropshire that there are no safe seats for the Conservatives in rural Britain.

Vote Lib Dem and save the Shropshire hills

From the Shropshire Star:

South Shropshire's area of outstanding natural beauty is under threat from a loss of biodiversity and increasing light pollution, the Liberal Democrats election candidate for Ludlow has said. 

Heather Kidd said that some animals including butterflies are now a rare sight at the Shropshire Hills area of outstanding natural beauty ... and that air pollution is partly to blame. 

The Lib Dems are recommending replacing street lamps with LEDs and issued a stark warning that "we need to act now" to protect the hills' tranquillity.

Tory MP accuses Sikh opponent of "talking through his turban"

At a hustings held in St Laurence's, Church Stretton, last night Philip Dunne, the Conservative candidate for Ludlow and MP for the seat since since 2005, accused his Sikh Labour opponent of "talking through his turban".

The Shropshire Star quotes the Liberal Democrat candidate Heather Kidd, who also took part:

"The audience was obviously shocked. It was the worst kind of unthinking Tory prejudice. 

"Mr Dunne apologised quickly, but he should do so again publicly and have a big think about his attitudes, and reflect on his responsibilities. 

"The comment came 15 minutes after holier-than-thou assertions that the Conservative Party always acts on Islamophobia and prejudice, which does make you wonder. 

"If a full explanation is not forthcoming we're entitled to come to our own conclusions."

The retoxification of the Conservative Party is surely complete.

Jets over the Stiperstones

News reaches me from Shropshire that people living in and around the Stiperstones are being plagued with noise from passenger jets.

Peter Phillips, the doyen of Shropshire Liberals, says:

"From about 6 in the morning till 9.30 there is a constant stream of planes. As they take quite a few minutes to pass over, one is seldom free from their noise. Through the day, with less frequency, this continues and then another 'rush hour' in the evening."

The planes, which are not visible, are flying from north to south.

Peter suggests that this is a result of the governments total liberalisation of flight paths as the planes were previously routed over the Irish Sea.

The Conservative MP for the area has so far been less than responsive, but Worthen's Liberal Democrat councillor Heather Kidd is on the case.

Who knows? This may come to rival the Ratlinghope potholes as an issue in the Bishop's Castle by-election.

Should South Shropshire be a national park?

The idea that South Shropshire should be a national park seems to be gaining momentum.

The Shropshire Star reports that the man tasked by Michael Gove with look at whether any new parks should be created, thinks so.

Julian Glover, a former speechwriter for David Cameron and the first person to commission me to write for the Guardian, says:

"I know Shropshire very well. 

"I partly grew up in the Shropshire Hills, and they are as beautiful as anywhere in a national park."

Indeed they are. Someone once described them to me as being like the Lake District without all the visitors.

Andy Boddington, the Lib Dem councillor from Ludlow, also supports the idea.

He writes on his blog:

We live in one of the most beautiful areas of the country. We have so much beauty surrounding us that we often forget its there. It is ordinary to us but astonishing to people who come here. 

My view is that national park will be beneficial for South Shropshire. It will promote the economy. But there could be downsides like too many visitors or rising house price. There could be upsides like more affordable housing. More businesses within and around the national park.

And he concludes:

My view is that we should at that point submit a bid for national park status. 

A national park that stretches from Ironbridge to the Mortimer Forest. Embracing the Titterstone Clee, the Long Mynd, the Stiperstones, Bishop’s Castle and Clun.

He urges people in the county to attend a debate organised by the Shropshire Council's Ludlow and Clee local joint committee on 29 November.

I welcome the idea, but I can think at once of a couple of problems that need to be tackled if it is to be a success.

The first is affordable housing. When I discovered the county more than 30 years ago I used to wonder at how cheap houses were. Then the weekending classes discovered the restaurants of Ludlow and everything changed.

Two years ago it was announced that Hope primary school near the Stiperstones was to close. Heather Kidd, the Lib Dem councillor for the ward, saw no alternative because young families cannot could to move to the area - see her comment on that post too.

The second issue is bus services, which being cut in Shropshire just as they are everywhere else.

The Secret Hills shuttle bus that runs at weekends is a shadow of what it was a few years ago, when you could use it to reach Bishop's Castle, Clun and Much Wenlock.

And the bus from Shrewsbury to Bishop's Castle is under threat of withdrawal.

I support the idea of giving my favourite landscape national park status, but unless something is done about these and other issues in the area, I am not sure how much it will really achieve.

Chaos in the Stiperstones

From the Shropshire Star:

Severn Trent Water has been accused of causing more chaos on Shropshire roads after a short-notice closure shut the road between two rural villages. 

School buses, commuters and the service bus between Snailbeach and Stiperstones all found themselves turned away when they ran into unexpected roadworks. 

The water company said no notice could be given as it was an emergency closure, but this has not gone down well with residents who reported the leak more than two months ago. 

Councillor Heather Kidd, who represents Chirbury and Worthen, said: "Severn Trent fail to deal with leaks until they get pretty serious. They ignore problems until things get worse and then suddenly close a road, claiming its an emergency."

It's good to see Heather is on Severn Trent's case and this does give me an excuse to post another photograph of one of my favourite roads.

In which Priest Weston is entirely surrounded by potholes

There's worrying news of my favourite part of Shropshire.in the Shropshire Star:

People living in a rural village on the Welsh border have demanded immediate county council action after being threatened with being effectively cut off by unfinished roadworks. 

At a meeting held at Priest Weston Village Hall locals told of their frustrations concerning the roads’ poor maintenance and the damage it was causing to their cars. 

Among those present was the school bus driver and the primary school minibus driver - both of whose routes have been affected by the lack of work to remedy the road surfaces.

The meeting was organised by the area's Liberal Democrat county councillor Heather Kidd.

She told the Star:

“Despite a sustained campaign by residents and myself we still have not had any meaningful repairs done to the dreadful road surfaces on all four roads leading out of the village.”

There is a mention too for The Miners Arms, which is one of the pubs in this part of the world where local resident Ronnie Lane would sometimes turn up with a few friends and give an unadvertised performance.

This is not the first time Priest Weston has had such problems. Back in 2007 the collapse of an old mine shaft led to the closure of the road to White Grit.

That incident led to this piece of whimsy from me in the New Statesman:

Last year, down the road in a field near White Grit, an old mineshaft collapsed. It left a hole 50ft across and 20ft deep. (You will find White Grit on the map near The Bog ­- the village names are delightful round here.) 

The hole turned out to be right on the border between Shropshire and Powys and neither council was keen to take responsibility for it. Argument raged over whether it was in England or Wales. And until the matter was settled I had a profitable side-line selling bootleg liquor from a stall in the field.

Anyway, as the Coalition and Conservative governments' cuts to local authority spending bite every more deeply, I fear there will be many more cases like Priest Weston.

The threat to council services in Church Stretton - and everywhere else

The Liberal Democrat peer Julie Smith - Baroness Smith of Newnham - visited Church Stretton in Shropshire earlier this month.

I have been sent some photographs from her visit. See if you can spot the common factor.

That's right. This small Shropshire town is faced with the loss of its library, swimming pool and ohter facilities because of spending cuts by the county council.

Meanwhile, Barclays is planning to close the last bank in Church Stretton.

Julie Smith said during her visit:

"Facilities like the pool, the library, the children's centre and the visitor information centre all play an important role in the life and health of the area. Their contribution is very significant to the town’s wellbeing and to its economy, yet they are all under threat from Shropshire Council’s plans. 

It is very much to be hoped that Shropshire Council will  step back from these damaging proposals which, in the scheme of things, will make an insignificant contribution to the council’s financial problems."

And Heather Kidd, chair of the local Lib Dem constituency party, said:

"Our small market towns are being hollowed out. Their vibrancy, their attractiveness to businesses, are imperilled. Yet the large towns, which have many times the population, could finance their own services at very little extra on their council tax. Our small towns simply do not have the tax base to do so. Already, Church Stretton’s band D is £174 , while Shrewsbury’s is only £45."

Meanwhile, reports the Guardian:

England’s mainly Conservative-run county councils have warned ministers that the "worst is yet come" over cuts to services and that several authorities risk going bust unless steps are taken to shore up budgets.

To end on a happier note, we can agree with what Julie Smith said after visiting the Shropshire hills:

"This is a stunningly beautiful part of the country."

Two Shropshire village schools to close

The Shropshire Star reports that Hope Church of England Primary School and St Mary’s Church of England Primary School in Westbury are set to close. Under the plans, pupils will be transferred to an amalgamated site at Worthen Church of England Primary School.

Heather Kidd, the excellent Liberal Democrat councillor for the area, sees no alternative because young families cannot afford to move to the area.

But it is hard not to gasp as the casuistry of the Conservative cabinet member for education on Shropshire Council:

“It is very important to understand that this is not a decision to close the schools, but a decision to consult on the amalgamation of the three schools, requiring the closure of two of the sites and enlarging the provision on the third site to accommodate the displaced pupils."

As I asked when the school at nearby Stiperstones was threatened:

Aren't Tories meant to have romantic feelings about things like village schools?

The photographs here show the school at Hope.

No gritting for White Grit

Heather Kidd, the Liberal Democrat councillor for Chirbury and Worthen, has been making waves in the Shropshire Star.

According to the paper, she has:

accused the authority of overlooking the county's hillier rural parts where the recent snow had lingered once the ice had melted in towns. 

She said in particular the village of Priest Weston had not seen a school bus for three weeks due to a combination of roadworks and a lack of arrangements to grit the roads. ... 

Councillor Kidd said: "The recent blast of wintery weather came and went quite quickly for most of the county. 

"But for much of the Bentlawnt, White Grit and Priest Weston area the snow and ice lingered much longer. 

"Unfortunately the council seemed to have forgotten much of the area when it came to gritting."

I knew this photograph would come in useful one day.

Charlotte Barnes to contest Ludlow for the Liberal Democrats

From the Shropshire Star:

Charlotte Barnes, Shropshire Councillor for Bishop's Castle, has been selected by Ludlow Liberal Democrats to contest the MP Philip Dunne's seat in the Ludlow constituency. 

A mother-of-two, Mrs Barnes has built a reputation as a local campaigner on issues such as unwanted housing, the Bishop's Castle Youth Club and the future of the town's business park. She is currently pressing the mobile provider EE over their poor signal in the area. 

She said: "It's a great honour to be selected to represent the Lib Dems in next year's contest. 

"I will be following in the footsteps of great local campaigners such as Matthew Green and Heather Kidd. "We face some real challenges in this rural part of Shropshire. 

We are often neglected by both Central Government and the County. The threat of our hospital services disappearing, falling school rolls and a chaotic slash and burn council are just some of the problems our area faces."

I had a drink with Charlotte when I was on holiday in the county a couple of summers ago. I am sure she will make an excellent candidate.

Stiperstones post office is safe

More good news from the Shropshire Star:

Local councillor for Chirbury, Heather Kidd, had sought assurances from Post Offices bosses after the postmaster in Pontesbury, Brian Simmonds, announced his wish to retire. 

The outreach post offices in Marton, Stiperstones and Wentnor come under his jurisdiction and there were fears for their future should he leave. But, according to the Post Office, following a series of lengthy discussions, a new option has now been found – securing the outreach services for the time being.

The story also quotes her fellow Liberal Democrat councillor Charlotte Barnes. The photograph shows Stiperstones post office - I always knew it would come in useful one day.

Best venue for a councillor's surgery ever

Heather Kidd is holding a surgery at the Stiperstones Inn on 13 February.