DASH FOR GAS IS NO ROSE FESTIVAL!

 It seems these days we are on an endless moving belt fighting to protect the environment or defending our villages from the mass assault of the developers. Now after ongoing fears in Goostrey over housing, still an unresolved issue, the latest battle ahead I guess will be shale gas. Or as still shaken parts of earthquake-hit Lancashire knows only too well - fracking. How can this be of concern to us, it might be asked. Well, if you Google it, as they say, you will rapidly discover that Goostrey is possibly  part of a large chunk of  east Cheshire where it appears trillions of cubic feet of the oil bearing rock might lurk beneath our feet!  If you doubt what I say you will find a map on a new site devoted to the issue in our part of the county on  Facebook I came across by chance. Of course, should our village be earmarked for a fracking well it could bring untold riches if the dash for gas went on unhindered. In return for a promised handsome pot of £100,000 plus one per cent of the revenue I have no doubt our Cheshire East council is already counting the gas dollars in the bank!
I will say nothing more on the subject until I have some hard facts. Instead I will switch to the village event of the year, the Rose Festival this week-end.  There have been more wet years than fine years, I seem to think, but I could be wrong. Until the other day the forecast appeared to favour, if not wall to wall sunshine, at least a fine day for once. Now with rain in the offing for the next couple of days who knows what it will be like on the day - although my long-range forecast tells me it should not rain! I still have memories of last year when all was set fair until the procession set off from Booth Bed Lane and then the heavens opened just in time for the festivities. One of the features of  the festival is the friendly (?) competition between the float-makers. Many of their themes are now an open secret at the bars of the Crown Inn and the Red Lion, but there are some entries still to spring a surprise on the day.Whatever happens, I am sure all the village will have a great day, rain or fine.

DOCTORS PLEA FOR CASH INJECTION

 Assurances by  the  government  that despite the present  age of austerity-led slash and  burn, the NHS is ring-fenced are just weasel words it seems.  I picked up a leaflet at Holmes Chapel Health Centre the other day that presents a far different picture in this corner of Cheshire. Since April local health services have been managed by a new Eastern Cheshire Clincial Commisioning Group. The Holmes Chapel practice is one of 23 in the group which has  a budget of £221.5 million to buy all  medications and medical care for the population of  East Cheshire. Sounds a lot of  lolly but already the practices fear that they will have overspent by £12.5 million by the end of the financial year.
  The group's gripe - quite rightly - is that it is receiving the smallest amount of cash in the North West despite having one of the largest populations of elderly patients, many in nursing homes, requiring a high use of medical and social services. And the government has totally ignored this in allocating the cash in spite of  promises that handing over control of the budget to local doctors and patients healthcare services would improve. In what doctors say is "grossly unfair" other groups in areas like Chester, Stockport, Manchester and Liverpool  have some 50 per cent more to spend on patients.  So far pleas from the medicos for a further injection of cash have fallen on deaf ears in Whitehall, and now they are turning to patients to front up their local MP - including the chief of slash and burn Chancellor George Osborne - to explain why the government is spending less on their healthcare when they pay the same income tax, national insurance and VAT as  everyone else.
 Doctors say to balance the budget at the end of the year is a tall order and very serious with the only option a major change in the way GP and hospital services operate. Of course, another option would be to give two fingers to the health mandarins and overspend, but the prognosis then is the arrival  of accountants to axe services - no doubt on fat salaries - to balance the books!
 +Fiona Bruce MP (Congleton) email: fiona.bruce.@parliament.uk  George Osborne MP (Tatton) email: public.enquiries@hm-treasury.gov.uk  David Rutley MP (Macclesfield)  email: david.rutley.mp@parliament.uk

THREE DAYS WITH SUN IS SUMMER!

The steam engine rattles along Blackden Lane

What's that in the tree, Grandad ?

What difference a day can make! Friday I was huddled against a whip-lashing wind, booted. hatted and scarved in temperatures reminiscent of winter, waiting for the village circular bus to arrive. Then Saturday and Sunday it was summer with  tee-shirts and shorts and burnt knees, as the temperature rose, if agonisingly slowly, towards the mid-sixties. And I know why I am really glad to live in Goostrey. Today it will be a different tale though – a typical rained-off Bank Holiday Monday is promised by the weathermen and I am dreaming of lands far away where sunshine is wall-to-wall, but just now the sun still shines!  In the spirit of grab-it-while you can I set off Saturday to take a few snaps of the village in this rare (this year) glow. Wondered why Blackden Lane was so quiet and it soon became clear. Birdsong in the great lime trees was replaced by a deep-throated tum, tum, tum as a steamer rattled in view, belching smoke, and followed in procession by a gaggle of vehicles in the narrow lane. A shriek of a greetings toot on the whistle and he was gone – labouring up Church Bank on a journey to who know where. Apart from a brief a pit stop and another steam-powered toot at the Crown where the monthly farmer’s market was in full swing! I’d planned to stroll through the village but the temptation on offer of a beer from Simon Kalton, joint owner of the inn, and the sight of Chris, the manager, with a painted tiger face was too good to resist!  Simon tells me the Dog at Over Peover  -formerly the Gay Dog in days when it meant something of a jolly good time – which he and his partner, Edward Barlow, took over and refurbished is, like the Crown, doing great things in the village. So much so he hopes to get together with the gooseberry shows held at the pubs to put on some kind of bash after this season’s battle of the berries. I’d spotted a picture in Margaret Kettle’s window showing the bongs carpeted in  a mass of bluebells, but it must have been taken either last year or several weeks ago. As you will note from my picture they were a bit of a limp disappointment when I ventured into the ancient woodland. But then again perhaps I shouldn’t have loitered over a beer on such a wonderful day!

Chris "tiger Face" Jennings 

+Click the pictures to enlarge 

 I hear there has been a tremendous response to Goostrey's new footpath  highlighted in my last blog. One villager I encountered had just attempted the footpath - by bike! Not the best or ideal way as getting stuck in  one of the new kissing gates encumbered by the machine could have had a less romantic end! However, I am assured by the gentleman concerned that he will be walking next time. He says it  was  wonderful to experience the delights of the new public right and can certainly recommend it.  Sadly, I did not get to the official opening on the Bogbean but Roger Dyke, a member of Goostrey Footpath Group, has kindly sent me a report and several pictures of the event which I am only too pleased to publish as the rest of this blog.

MAYOR WALTON OPENS FOOTPATH TO OVER PEOVER

From Roger Dyke

Forty folk defied the rain to witness the Mayor of Congleton East, Councillor George Walton, present Goostrey Footpath Group member Bill Owen with a plaque commemorating the opening of the new public footpath linking Goostrey to Over Peover.

At the Bogbean in the shelter of a gazebo that had to be held down against the wind, Goostrey Guides provided light refreshments and then Bill Owen outlined to the Mayor the long history of the project, from the Parish Council and Residents Association original initiative in 1995 to the present day, and thanked the County Farms team and the County’s Public Rights of Way team for their wholehearted support of the project, without which nothing could have been achieved.  

Particular thanks were also recorded to the Manchester Airport Community Fund, for its substantial financial contribution to the actual construction of the path, with its many bridges and kissing gates.

In return the Mayor congratulated the Goostrey Footpath Group on the tenacity with which the project had been pursued over the 17 years, and complimented Bill on the key role he had played personally in the extended negotiations.

The newsmen’s cameras clicked and flashed as the Mayor presented Bill with a Commemorative Plaque, and the new footpath was declared officially Open.

With the weather improving the party made its way down Mill Lane and along the new footpath to Valley Farm Wood, where a token ribbon was cut for the benefit of the press photographers.  

Despite squelchy conditions underfoot the Mayor walked with the ceremonial party through Valley Farm Wood and on into Galey Wood where he joined in the installation of the Plaque on one of the many new bridges.

The first new public footpath in Cheshire East for four years was definitely Open for Use….

Colour leaflets describing the path (and outlining two walks) are available – free – from Mrs Kettle’s, Goostrey News and Goostrey Home & Leisure.

 NEW PATH TRACKS GOOSTREY'S HIDDEN COUNTRY



A map of Goostrey paths with the new link

    I always believed if I stepped from my driveway  and trekked northwards I would reach John o' Groats, or turning west arrive at Land's End, simply by using the ancient footpaths and green roads of Britain. But alas I've just discovered that I have been under a serious delusion all these years. Not that I ever intend to carry out such a feat of endurance in my wildest of nightmares. I've been a bit of a rambler though in my time - encouraged I must say by my late wife, Joan, whose father was one of the leaders in the great Mass Trespass on Kinder Scout and a founder member of the Ramblers Association. My kind of walking has been of the more genteel  sort. Some people might remember that in Town and Country Post I featured a local ramble every month for many years.  According to Roger Dyke, a leading light in the very worthy Goostrey Footpaths Group, I would soon have got into difficulties had I wished to use a footpath to the north as beyond the village boundary I would rapidly become 



Signposts and bridges help the walker

  stuck in the mire! South, yes it  possible I  could travel  via any number of public rights of way. But north was a no-go area across some of the area's most delightful countryside because of a one and a half mile breach between Goostrey and the Peover Superior ( for those readers outside Cheshire it is Peever not Peeover) foothpath network. I recall when I lived in Mill Lane I often thought what I should do when I reached the end of the lane. Risk the wrath of some angry landowner or a yapping dog by nipping across his fields in an act of sheer folly.Often as a youngster with a like-minded gang of semi-rural urchins such notices to keep out  were ignored in pursuit of scrumping apples from the farmer's orchard! Now through the efforts of the footpaths group, a plan mooted by Goostrey Parish Council and the residents' association  in 1995 to establish a  link between the parishes has been completed. Woodland and hidden countryside denied of access for generations of  walkers has been dedicated as a public right of way by Cheshire East Council. With work and funding by the footpaths group, as well as financial help from the council and  Manchester Airport Community Trust Fund, the route has been created, waymarked,signposted and bridged. There is even the odd kissing gate for those romantically inclined! The link provides a walk of between three and six miles depending on which route is chosen to return to Goostrey. The milestone is to be marked by the official opening this Saturday (May 11) of the village's first new public footpath since possibly the stone age! (journalistic license) Council mayor George Walton is performing the ceremony at the Bogbean, near the start of the route at Mill Lane, followed by snipping a ribbon at the new bridge in Galey Wood.

Goostrey Footpath Group prepare to sign the path

+An illustrated leaflet  of the new path in colour is available free at Margaret Kettle's shop and village post office and from Nigel at Goostrey News. Still available from local shops is the foothpath group's local walking bible "More Goostrey Walks and Strolls" - a bargain at £3.95

 Part of the straw insulation

VILLAGE  ROAD IS THE LAST STRAW!

  The so-called silly season is the month famously an August phenomenon  when the well of news runs dry and papers fill pages with daft stories from who knows where. But a blog is a different species when it focuses on more quirky aspects of rustic rural life !  Well, I like to think that is the way I play it. So when Paul, a local builder arrived on my field with the best part of  the roof from old Mr Challinor's bungalow in Church Bank, in journalistic terms it was as they say like an early silly season gift to make bricks from straw.The great mass of beams and purlins are destined for the household biomass boiler, a French-made Perge which acts like a demanding mistress with its enormous appetite for wood during  the  winter months as it fires the central heating.  But what really excited me - OK I know that sounds a tad sad! - were several sheets of  what appeared to be compressed barley straw among the debris. Such straw is now used extensively to build houses by Eco-geeks but I would have thought it revolutionary as insulation when the late villager's house was built between the wars. Paul, who is enlarging the property to move in with his wife and eight-year-old daughter, says it was a first for him to find such material used to insulate the flooring. A builder friend Martin was also a little nonplussed at its use, but I guess Mr Challinor, an esteemed member of the Goostrey building family, who passed on in his nineties, was some seventy or more years ahead of his time! So there you have it a blog from straw. And a picture, too, all from nowt!
I have to thank the Sandbach Chronicle for contributing to my next item - or the ongoing story of  potholed Blackden Lane outside my home and Church Bank. The latest issues confirms my darkest fears. Our district council Cheshire East is one of the worst in the country for the condition of its road surfaces.What's  laughable it has even boasted about the number of potholes it has dealt with after complaints from residents. But despite my own protestations and plea to have Blackden Lane resurfaced, not just potholed filled, it still appears to fall on deaf ears. Our neighbour Paul Chaisty, an eminent advocate, tells me the council says the work will be done soon. But I think the council is ducking and diving as I am told it is not even listed in  the schedule of  major roadworks for the next twelve years! My informant at the parish council's annual meeting the other night says another local issue of a feared building boom in the villages seems unresolved. The district council is sticking to its guns in describing Goostrey as a Local Service Centre - an insulting description if I ever heard one - in the master plan for future housing developments. It insists the name makes no difference anyway. But perhaps a  shed load of  government lolly for every new home built in the council's fiefdom has something to do with it! More about this can be found on the excellent Love Goostrey website.
BLOG STOP PRESS: I see it is again the Farmer's Market at the Crown Inn this Saturday.

ROAD RAGE AS VILLAGE STATION SPARKLES

Goostrey Station and the iconic building in need of restoration

Cleaning the shelter Gavin Hollinshead, Barry Alston
and Peter Godfrey

I 'm pleased to find the Friends of Goostrey Station are keeping me up to speed about their efforts to transform this vital asset with a major make over. Pleased too they had the good sense to refer to it as a "railway" station - not  that terrible American term of "train" station. But I guess many of the volunteers organised into monthly working parties will be of an age when the person in charge of a train was a guard, not a conductor as most operators (and media) now appear to insist on calling the individual. Perhaps they think it sounds posh or more upmarket to call the staff conductors. But personally I think it is daft. That should be reserved for an orchestra! Ok I hear what you  say - what the hell does it matter anyway. But I bet the job description doesn't come with extra lolly! Now I have had my little rant I'd like to say what a magnificent job the 50 or so friends are doing at the railway station. Like magic floral tubs have popped up on the platform and the banking on the roadside is looking really splendid with new plantings.  Goostrey is one of 450 stations managed by Northern Rail and I gather the main building - recently identified by the London Midland Railway Society as one of only a handful to remain of a type built between 1860 and 1920 - is in a sad state of repair. However, I learn from Mike Jarvis, the treasurer of FOGS, that sponsors are being sought so restoration can start. More volunteers are welcome to join the working parties meeting on the second Sunday of the month between 10am and 1pm.
Peter Godfrey, who is a parish councillor as well as vice-chairman of the friends, says the volunteers are from all sections of village life. "All are keen to make sure the station reflects positively on Goostrey."
I wish  Cheshire East  Council's highways department was as pro-active as our friends at the station. The condition of the roads about the village continue to deteriorate at an alarming rate. My particular beef over several years, as the highways people well know, is Blackden Lane. I thought I was a bit of a lone voice crying in the wind but now my neighbours are complaining too about the state of the road surfaces.I have referred to it in the past as rock and roll alley but now that has changed to bomb alley since almost every vehicle that passes shakes my property and others like a blast from  high explosives.The other night one particular heavy vehicle seemed to lift the roof in the same way as I still remember in the blitz of World War 11! Fortunately a fire engine earlier today on its way to rescue a fallen cow in a field off Red Lane was forced to creep past the house because of oncoming traffic. Otherwise there might have been another emergency!