Monday 12 August 2013

GOOSTREY- WITHINGTON IN JODRELL BANK SPACE GRAB




The wrongly sited village sign
   I'm aware that Goostrey didn't prove a match for Lower Withington in the heaviest gooseberry stakes but I think it's a bit rich when they they also sneak onto our patch in a land grab! Kelvin Archer, a worthy world record holder,  was certainly more than a few whiskers ahead of this village with his big berry at the Withington show of a tad over 32 pennyweights.  However, it can now be revealed that not content with the big berry bashing, the parish council has weighed in by erecting a new village sign in Goostrey's territory. The fact the area nicked includes some of the giant  radio telescope - possibly Goostrey's biggest ratepayer - will not be lost on councillors! The discovery was made by blog correspondent Bernard Tuck, who lives at Jodrell Bank, part of Goostrey parish, on the main Chelford to Holmes Chapel Road (A535). If he didn't actually do it, figuratively I guess he must have scratched his head in astonishment when he spotted the newly installed sign, before consulting the Ordnance Survey map to confirm Lower Withington's boundary is more than a hundred yards up the road. He has raised the issue with the two councils - in a very lighthearted way of course,  this being the August silly season - for an explanation of the invasion into Goostrey  land-space. And with a bit of digital doctoring, he has added to an image he took  of the crime scene his own take on Withington's apparent error, the legend "Twinned with Goostrey."  Bernard says the sign has actually been planted almost outside the entrance to Terra Nova School on the Goostrey-Twemlow boundary on top of the rise near Bridge Lane - a nasty  collision black-spot about which he has been campaigning for some road safety measures after a string of  serious accidents and near misses. So, in that sense drawing attention to the boundary cock-up could help to  kick-start official action over road!

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