Welcome to our third, autumn edition of the Cradley and Storridge Reporter. The Reporter is the official newsletter of Cradley Parish Council and communicates the activities of your Council and its partnerships with local groups.

In this issue, we have focused on the less visible activities of the Parish Council, including the tree and footpaths wardens and reports from our facilitators on Parish Plan groups.

The Parish Council acts as facilitator to assist groups that are active in the community to achieve results in line with the Parish Plan. Moreover, certain of our Councillors have been developing expertise in tapping outside sources of finance to assist projects. If monetary support is available, our sleuths will find it!

A Parish Council working party will soon be scrutinising the Annual (financial and governance) return to the outside auditor. Each and every Councillor is responsible for ensuring the proper financial governance of Council affairs.

As before, we hope that you will find at least one item of interest to you in these pages and will come forward to our Clerk with ideas of your own for future editions.

David Creed- Newton

Cradley and Storridge have over 30 miles of public rights of way. As well as having a Footpaths Committee, in recognition of the importance of public rights of way, the Parish Council also appoints voluntary Footpaths’ Officers.

Jeff White and Terry Hackling, our own local Footpaths’ Officers, are keen walkers, and retirement is giving them more time to be out and about. Herefordshire Council provides them with training and information and back- up for serious problems. Both Jeff and Terry are members of the Parish Plan Working Group and were involved with the Walking Event at the end of July.

Speaking to Jeff recently, he said that he sees his function as being to walk the paths and to take on board any problems he may see. Jeff never walks without his secateurs! Where more than whacking a few nettles or a little light pruning is needed he will chat with the land- owner, but for serious issues he will bring in Tim Thompson, the Herefordshire Footpaths Officer.

Jeff White is particularly keen to be the first port of call on footpaths matters. He can be contacted on 01886 880000

We are looking for people to help us deliver the "Reporter" starting with the November issue.

Could you deliver to any one of: Huntingdon, Pixiefield, Credenleigh, Oaklands, or Kings Orchard? This will leave council members to cover the more widely spread parts of the community.

If you think you can help please contact Geoff Thomas on 880686

From the wooded tops of Halesend and Whitman’s Hill, to individual trees in fields and gardens, the views around the parish are particularly blessed. Many of these trees are covered by Tree Protection Orders, requiring permission from Herefordshire Council prior to any pruning or felling. These orders apply to all trees in the Malvern Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty which covers much of the east of the parish, the Cradley Conservation Area around Brookside and Wold Mill, and on individual trees such as those in Pixiefields and on Chapel Lane.

Jill Upton has taken on the task of Parish Tree Warden. Jill and her deputy, Geoff Best, have been to training sessions in Hereford and Worcester. Herefordshire Conservationists use them as watchdogs and as sounding boards, inviting them to countywide meetings on trees. Ultimately Hereford would like Tree Wardens to be the local first port of call, but recognises that more training would be needed to make that possible.

Locally Jill is involved with the Heritage Group undertaking a survey of the trees in the parish. Quite a marathon task!

In villages across the country the Post Office is the place to go for information. Sue and David Mayor make sure that Cradley Post Office and Stores maintains that tradition. Posters of forthcoming events cram the window including that of the agenda for Parish Council meetings. Inside the store you will also find copies of council meeting minutes for the last four years.

On the notice board outside Pete and Lynn’s butcher’s shop on the Bosbury Road are copies of our agendas and recent minutes. The same you will find on the notice board at Finchers Corner and Storridge Village Hall.

The opening of the Cradley Village Hall archive centre will present the Council with new opportunities for some of the items currently in the care of our Clerk

Our winters are getting warmer and wetter, considerably wetter. And not through snow-melt either, but an excess of the wet stuff from the skies. Whatever the arguments about

global warming, the evidence is that this parish, based as it is around a network of streams and brooks, will be seriously inundated on a far more regular basis.

In the twenty years up to 1998 Cradley only suffered two major floods;in the past six years alone we have already had two bad ones, with a virtual certainty of more in the near, rather than the far future.

Your Parish Council is already looking into the provision of sandbags for those households close to known flood-points. We are also investigating, with the aid of Herefordshire Council’s Environment department and the local landowners involved, what can be done to make the river approaches to our two main road bridges: Stifford’s Bridge on the A4103 and Kingsbridge, by the Mathon turn, less overgrown, and thus less liable to bridge-span blocking by detritus hurled at them by streams in full spate.

The parish sandbag store will be situated at the Oast House, Lower Vinesend Farm, Vinesend Lane. Sandbags may be collected from there as soon as delivery from Hereford has been made. The relevant householders will be infomed. Contacts are: Jerry Thomas on 880868 ans Chris Lowder on 880282.

C.L.

We have a new recruit who will be writing regularly about the Parish in the local newspapers. She is Nella Holden, who, motivated by her wish to become a journalist will be adding this to her list of tasks as she tackles her "A" level studies next term. She is anxious to give a good account of what must be one of the liveliest parishes in the county. Working in the Post Office in her "spare time" is a good start, but she will need your help to keep up to date.

Most of us are familiar with the two clock faces on Cradley Church tower, and some of us can hear it chiming the hours through the week. But who knows its history, and who looks after it? Surprisingly maintaining the clock in the church tower is the responsibility of the Parish Council and is seen as very much part of our local heritage. The plaque in the bell tower explains this:

TO THE GLORY OF GOD

AND IN MEMORY OF THE MEN WHO FROM

THIS PARISH LAID DOWN THEIR LIVES

IN THE GREAT WAR 1914 –1919

------------------------

THE CLOCK IN THE TOWER OF THIS CHURCH

WAS ERECTED BY PUBLIC SUBSCRIPTION

The Parish Council maintains the clock but the weekly task of winding falls to the bell ringers. Over the last 30 years, Ron Cooper, Malcolm Scott and now Chris Roberts have weekly wound the one hundred plus turns to raise each weight up the tower.The bell tingers asked the Parish Council to consider automatic winding mechanisms, but these would cost over two and a half thousand pounds. We have now decided to set–up a team of volunteers to wind the clock. If you are fit and think you might enjoy keeping history going in the parish let Chris Lowder know, on 880282.

Tips for Children (of all ages): Next time you pass the tower, put you ear to the north wall and you will hear the rhythmic swing of the pendulum.

In support of our Parish Plan three people from Cradley will become Rural Project Volunteer Advisors. Community Voluntary Action is a not for profit organisation, providing a wide range of support services to embryo, newly formed, and established voluntary organisations/groups operating within the Ledbury area.

The service provided by the organisation aim to:

• Encourage and support existing voluntary activity
• Develop new voluntary initiatives by identifying gaps in the community
• Improve communications and networking between voluntary groups and also between voluntary groups and statutory bodies
• Facilitate routes of representation for voluntary groups

Examples of the type of information available range from registering a charity, seeking funding, developing publicity material, through to formulating a business plan and providing draft constitutions. Also available will be access to the new Community Resource Centre at Cradley Village Hall which will give Access to

e-mail/internet and other office equipment resources.

The volunteers in Cradley are Joy Jerkins, Jerry Thomas and John Edgar. This resource is being set up at present; information and contact numbers will be published shortly.

Following the visit of Rob Hemblade the Rights of Way Manager for Hereford Council, the footpaths working group are now familiar with the P3 Scheme, which involves 30 Parishes in activities for maintaining footpaths. We are now up to date with the funding available and how this can be applied.

The council has also been able to respond to the Hereford Rights of Way Improvement Plan which will be part of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act (CROW) 2000. This has introduced to all Highway Authorities the responsibility of producing an Improvements Plan which must assess:

• The extent to which local Rights of Way meet present and likely future needs
• Opportunities provided by rights of way for exercise and other forms of open-air recreation and the enjoyment of the area.
• Accessibility to blind or partially sighted people or people with mobility problems and their friends and families

The assessment should identify where improvements are needed.

A walking event was held on 31st July with the aim of raising awareness of our footpaths network. Maps, pamphlets, talks and walks were on offer. Around forty people attended with half taking part in the walks themselves.

The working group has been involved in a presentation at the school on the subject of safe routes to the new school. Thirty-nine parents answered the questionnaires on walking, cycling and driving to school. Information gathered from this survey will be useful as the school prepares its transport plan.

The information held by the Council with regard to footpaths is now being catalogued and will eventually be available in the archive centre at Cradley Village Hall.

J.E.

Apart from the playing fields in Cradley, the Parish Council owns two plots of land in the Parish: the triangle on which the McLean memorial stands; and a manorial waste on Crumpton Hill in Storridge. Both are more important in terms of heritage rather than as real estate.

Who then owns the patches of land alongside major roads and at junctions? These are known as "roadside wastes", and in the absence of proof to the contrary are in public ownership and the responisibility of Herefordshire Council.

October 12^th 8.00pm Storridge VH

Council Meeting November 9th 7.30pm Storridge VH

November: Next issue of Cradley and Storridge Reporter

January 11^th 7.30 Storridge VH

Council Meeting