Community

Hodnet Footpath Group. March 7th Walk

Whilst spring may be upon us? March certainly is, so here are details of our next public/group walk.

This month’s walk is a varied one, and is centred around the nearby village of Fauls – largely following the route of our Walk 7 leaflet.

We will meet at Fauls Church for a 10AM start. There is car parking alongside.

This is a moderately long and undulating route of about 5 miles in length, with a fair few stiles, and is dog friendly. It could be muddy at this time of year, so good footwear is essential.

Duration of the walk is expected to be around 2 – 2.5 hours, so as desired bring a drink/snack.

Everyone is welcome.

Parish Magazine

The Hodnet Parish Magazine is now available on the website!

Eventually 4 months’ worth of magazines will be on the Home Page of the website at any time. They’ll be in a white box on the right hand side, imaginatively titled ‘The Parish Magazine’.

Thank you, Ed, for setting this up.

Hodnet Fire Station offers a ‘Warm Welcome’

A handful of Shropshire fire and rescue stations are opening their doors as Warm Welcome venues in the coming weeks, offering local residents a place to socialise, enjoy a coffee and a chat and receive a mini health check if they wish.

Over 70 community venues across the county have registered as Warm Welcomes this winter, as part of Shropshire Council’s cost of living campaign. Locations are listed on Shropshire Council’s website, alongside opening times and the facilities that they offer. These include libraries and museums, as well as community halls, charity premises and faith buildings. Many offer a place to sit and relax, whilst others offer a hot drink or access to wifi.

The Hodnet Fire Station Warm Welcome will be held on Mondays from 11am to 4.30pm.

Check the Warm Welcome page on Shropshire Council’s website for the full list.

Hodnet – Britain’s Poshest Village!

According to an article published in The Times on 7th January and now being picked up by other publications and Radio Shropshire, Hodnet heads the rankings as Britain’s poshest village. Strange, but true!

The original article isn’t easy to read online without subscribing to The Times but versions of it are available elsewhere!

Shropshire Star:

https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/features/2023/01/21/britains-poshest-village–do-they-mean-us/

The Times: https://archive.is/nZ7Um

The Shropshire Star article is far better than the Times!!

Half-Price Trees

People in Shropshire are to be offered trees at half price in a new initiative funded by Shropshire Council and HM Treasury this planting season.

This year residents, landowners, farmers, community groups, businesses and charities can apply for ‘bundles’ of 20 native trees and shrubs to plant as copses and small areas of woodland to maximise the benefits for landscape and wildlife around the county.

There will also be the option of planting small amounts of native hedgerow, either to ‘gap up’ existing hedgerows or to create short lengths of new ones where this improves habitat continuity or connectivity.

The bundles will cost just £18 each.

Under this year’s subsidised tree scheme, the trees are being provided in pre-arranged species mixes under options covering three broad types of planting situations commonly encountered around the county and a native hedgerow mix:

Woodland for general ‘lowland’ planting sites -English oak (20%), sessile oak (20%), small-leaved lime (20%), wild cherry (10%), hazel (10%), rowan (10%), hawthorn (5%) and crab apple (5%).

Woodland for ‘upland’/exposed sites – Sessile oak (50%), silver birch (15%), beech (10%), rowan (10%), hawthorn (10%) and crab apple (5%).

Woodland for damp/poorly drained sites – Common alder (35%), downy birch (20%), crack willow (10%), goat willow (10%), aspen (10%), osier (5%), hazel (5%) and guelder rose (5%).

Native hedgerow mix – Hawthorn (35%), field maple (20%), blackthorn (15%), hazel (15%), dog rose (5%), dogwood (5%) and guelder rose (5%).

The mixes above are available in bundles of 20 trees and will cost £18 per bundle (half-price), including a bamboo cane and spiral tree guard. All trees will be either bare root whips or cell grown and between 20cm – 80cm when ready for planting. For more information or to apply for subsidised tree scheme bundles click here or email nick.rowles@shropshire.gov.uk

£2 Bus Travel until 31st March 2023

People can travel around Shropshire by bus for no more than £2 for a single journey until the end of March, thanks to a Government fare cap scheme launched this week.

The ‘Get Around for £2’ campaign runs from 1 January to 31 March 2023 and aims to get more people to travel by bus, and reduce emissions and congestion by taking an estimated two million cars off the roads.

Backed by £60 million of Government investment, it will help users save money this winter, by capping single tickets at £2 across England, outside of London.

The No.64 Shrewsbury to Market Drayton service is one of the routes included.

In Shropshire the following operators are taking part in the scheme

  • Arriva Midlands North
  • Minsterley Motors*
  • BP Brown Travel trading as Select Bus Services
  • Banga Buses
  • Lugg Valley Travel

*not including the 38, 701, 722, 55, 738 and 740 services

For a full list of services included in this scheme follow this link: Shropshire buses included in £2 fare cap.

DATE CHANGE – December’s Walk – HFG

Due to unforeseen circumstances, the date of our December walk has had to be changed from the Tues 6th to Tues 13th December. All other details unchanged, as below.

This months public walk, led by Hodnet Footpath Group, will follow the route of our walk 3 leaflet, the ‘Permissive Path’ walk from Hodnet to Marchamley – but then go onwards to Hawkestone Hall where we will stop for the purchase of a coffee/tea or seasonal drink, plus take a walk around their gardens. Afterwards you can return to Hodnet directly, or continue the walk via the second part of the published route down Long Lane and over The Hearne to Hodnet.

This is an easy walk over largely dry terrain – so, hopefully its nearly weather proof !

Meet at the Lyon Hall’s car park in Hodnet ready for a 10.00 departure.

If you intend to come, please let David Wilson know (07970304169 email: david.wilson65@icloud.com)- so we can alert you to late changes &/or advise Hawkeston Hall of likely numbers to expect.

Accompanied children and dogs [on leads] also welcome. Sensible footwear advised.

Expected duration of this walk – around 2.5 – 3 hrs.

Note. To assist with planning, we aim to do these walks on a regular day each month, usually the first Tuesday of the month. Future walks – January 2023 – none; February 7th (Hodnet to Wollerton and back via Espley) March 7th (Around Fauls); April 4th (TBA); May 2nd (TBA).

All walks will start at 10.00 AM and last around 2 – 3 hours.

Keep up to date with all our activities via the Hodnet website or, better still, our group’s own Facebook page – search for Hodnet Footpath Group.

Boundary Commission for England proposes moving Hodnet into Newport and Wellington’s constituency

On 8 November Shropshire Council announced a final opportunity for residents to influence proposals for revised constituency boundaries to be presented to the Speaker of the House of Commons in July next year.

This may be the first you have heard about it, but as residents in the Hodnet ward will be significantly affected, it is time to sit up and take notice of what is being proposed! There is a short and final opportunity to comment on the proposal, which is to move Hodnet and Cheswardine from the North Shropshire constituency and place them into the Wrekin one, with Newport and Wellington.

Members of the public have until Monday 5 December to comment on this proposal.

The existing and proposed boundaries are shown on this map, which has been adapted from one on the Boundary Commission for England’s [BCE] website. You can access it by typing in your postcode on this page. Alternatively, a more detailed PDF map is available from the BCE website.

A guide to the 2023 Review of Parliamentary constituencies is also provided on the BCE website.

BCE Pprposed Wrekin constituency

A record of comments made in previous stages of the consultation is also available – again you will need to enter your postcode or select “North Shropshire” in the “Existing Constituency” to filter the comments once they have loaded. Amongst them is one submitted by Hodnet Parish Council:

Comment BCE-79197

Hodnet Parish Council wishes to object to leaving the North Shropshire constituency and becoming part of Newport and Wellington. This will cut off the parish from its local hub. The village has ties with the local North Shropshire market towns, such as Whitchurch, Wem and Market Drayton. The local schools, shops, recreation & clubs accessed by the parish are from the North Shropshire towns. We don’t have local connections with Newport, Wellington and Telford so this proposal will affect our parish greatly.

It is hard to disagree with the Parish Council’s sentiments. However, other drawbacks to this proposals should also be considered. One is that the MP will need to work with two sets of Local Authority members and staff, and almost certainly two different systems. Further, there is no central community location in the section of Shropshire the MP will represent for them to hold surgeries and the like. Whilst thinking about such things it also means that local residents will have to travel to Newport or Wellington, both very different communities to Market Drayton, to participate in political events such as hustings.

It is unclear at this stage how much impact a large number of submissions from a local community will have on the BCE proposals. However, if this is the first you have heard about them, and like the Parish Council and other respondents (including this author) you think they show a lack of understanding of community dynamics, then please consider making the effort to respond – doing so can take less than five minutes. You can do this on the BCE ‘Have your say here’ section.

Remember that the opportunity to comment ends on Monday 5 December.

Clip CLOP Appeal: Ollerton – Peplow

Everyone who uses our network of Public Rights of Way (PROW), e.g. footpaths and bridleways, will occasionally encounter seemingly incomprehensible dead ends or missing sections (‘gaps’). Indeed, we have some examples in and around Hodnet parish

All who value access to the countryside are encouraged to have a look at this website’s new “Clip CLOP” Appeal page for more information on a local campaign to legally (re)establish, as a bridleway, a long used but now blocked route between Ollerton and Peplow. If succesful, this will complete a ‘gap’ in our local network.

After you have visited it, we hope you will feel able to support it in some way – whether financial or practical.

Visit the Clip CLOP page HERE.

GAPS – More Information.
Often, ‘gaps’ in the current network are the result of inadequate recording of historically used routes when the first official PROW maps were drawn up, by Parish and County Councils, in the 1950’s. Sometimes these ‘gaps’ may reflect a past reluctance of Parish Councils to act against the expressed/supposed wishes of influential local landowners – who might not wish to have certain past routes formally recognised/recorded as passing over their land. Either way, The Ramblers organisation have recorded thousands of past used routes that are ‘missing’ from the current official (Definitive) rights of way maps – as part of their “Don’t Lose Your Way” campaign.

Hodnet Footpath Group. October 2022.

Unwanted Tree Dates!

Well, it took about 6 emails and a couple of phone calls but I finally have some dates when the STC Depot will be open to receive donations of unwanted trees. Dates and times are as follows:

Monday 31st October        10am – 3pm
Sat 5th November            8am – 11 am
Wednesday 9th November    9am – 3pm
Sat 12th November        8am – 11.30am

A location plan: