Charfield Bank

I expect everyone is tired of snowdrops by now. Nevertheless, I couldn't ignore them on the bank of Charfield Hill as I walked around the village this morning. They have been planted over many years and most recently by the village gardening group. 

Sadly this volunteer group recently folded - another casualty of the seeming scarcity of volunteers in every area of society in Britain at the moment. The parish council has taken most of the gardening group's interests on board and this bank will continue to be managed into the future.

Another similar condition was expanded on at last night's village hall 'emergency community meeting', where the outgoing Chair stated that they'd found no-one willing to steer the governing charity after May and that this might well mean the closure of the hall and the playing field behind. 

That would be a dreadful outcome for the village and another headache for the Parish Council chairman...

That same Chairman has just written to the Mayor of the West of England Combined Authority, noting that the proposed ending of bus services through the village will mean that these without private transport will not in future be able to access their doctors, dentists, local shops nor even their school... 

This is because the replacement dial-a-ride service will not operate out of the WECA region and most of our services are over the county line in Gloucestershire. The road between our village and the Gloucestershire town is narrow, steep, heavily trafficked and mostly without a pavement.

This strikes particularly at the elderly and young families in social housing, and 16 to 18 years olds in full time education who cannot access subsidised school buses.

Oh my, a day in the life rant... Still, the snowdrops are lovely. :-)