Obviously I can only speak for my home village of Hethersett but I bet that what I am going to write applies to hundreds of other places on the UK and even further afield.
I feel that issues in Hethersett can be split into national and local ones. Some are brought about by national trends and others because of the make up and nature of our specific village.
So what gives me the right to write these things? Well I feel that I have as good a grasp on issues as anyone else in the village. To start with I'm not aligned to or with any political party. I have lived in the village for over 40 years and come from Norfolk. I spent many years reporting on the village for local newspapers, have been involved with starting and running many village organisations and for the past eight years have produced an e magazine Hethersett Herald for the village which I hope has reflected the issues, the successes and the failures of the village. Additionally for the past 21 months I have edited the village Good News magazine.
There is a distinct difference between the two publications. The Herald discusses and highlights the issues facing the village, whilst Good News is a Christian based publication that looks more at the success of the village - hence its title.
So what are the issues facing us over say the next five years? As you get older your timeframe of years ahead shrinks. You are more likely to think about today and tomorrow rather than five years hence. I remember once asking someone what their hopes were for the next five years and they said "to still be breathing."
But for this blog we will dismiss those thoughts. As I sit writing this I can't help but feel that the political colour of our country will change in just over a year's time, going from Tory blue to Labour red. I feel this is inevitable. Obviously what follows are my own views but I would underline what I continually say - I support no particular political party. I just comment as I see things and as I see things at the present time we are under the rule of the worst Government I have experienced in my lifetime. And yes I have voted Conservative in the past which I guess in some ways gives me the right to make that comment.
This Government has procrastinated to such an extent that things have ground to a halt. The reality of situations doesn't measure with the nonsense that comes out of the mouths of Government Ministers.
Do I think this will change if we have a Labour Government - no I do not. Our Government model is broken with the main parties continually sniping at each other instead of doing what is best for the country.
Take the pensioners triple lock. Both the Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition were asked recently if they would keep this if they won the next General Election in 2024. Both avoided answering. That tells me everything I wanted to know as obviously both intend ditching it but know that admitting such would be a vote loser amongst older people. Ask a politician a straight question and expect a straightforward yes or no answer is like expecting the moon to be made out of cream cheese.
So back to my initial question. What are the major issues facing our village in the immediate future and top of the list by a country mile is village expansion.
Both parties seem hell bent on building as many new homes as they can. I know this leaves many older villages aghast.
"Where are all these new people coming from?" is a regular cry I hear.
I never have an answer but all the new housing gets filled. North Hethersett is a vast new development, almost a village within a village and there's much more to come.
I'm not against new development, far from it. I love living in Hethersett and want others to love living here as well. But facilities must keep pace with development, but they just don't. Yes we had a new primary school and yes we are getting a new co-op on the new development but this is far from being enough.
Take the centre of the village, or what might soon be known as the centre of the old village. We are scarcely awash with shops and facilities and health is my number one fear along with schools being inadequate to cope with pupil numbers.
A new health centre - seems easy when you put it into words doesn't it. With a population that will eventually gravitate towards the 10,000 mark, we need first class health facilities. These should be a right and not a luxury.
But what we currently have is an inadequate facility. Hethersett surgery is so often hit by staff shortages and unavailability that it closes on specific days. Residents complain about the time it takes to get an appointment and this is a real concern. Gone are the days when everyone had their own GP and simply made an appointment. When I have to fill in a form giving the name of my GP, I haven't a clue what to put.
So it has to be accepted that we currently have a medical service that isn't adequate. Then we hear that land has been set aside for a new medical centre on the new development. But how will this be staffed if the current facilities are struggling?
This has been asked numerous times on social media.
Just this week there was another suggestion that the former Woodside school could be turned into a second medical centre. But once again the same question arises. "How will this be staffed if the existing facilities often struggle."
As one resident said on Facebook "It's all well and good having a dedicated building but not a lot of use if there's nobody to staff it."
And that conveniently brings me round to the thorny question of pharmacies. There have been plenty of rumours that Boots pharmacy in Hethersett will be amongst those culled in the near future. If I was a betting man I would put money on Hethersett Boots closing within the next year and that makes a mockery of the Government's idea of putting pharmacies at the centre of health care and to have chemists take some of the pressure off doctors. If the shop is shut, that just isn't going to happen.
The idea here is that everyone living near a bus route can travel to a pharmacy. This is a real nonsense. Taken to its logical conclusion that means virtually every pharmacy could potentially close apart from a few in cities, after all virtually every town in Norfolk has a bus service into Norwich. And what happens if public transport is subjected to cuts?
Elderly people cannot be expected to get on a bus to travel miles to pick up regular prescriptions.
All of this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the diminishment of village services. We used to have a bank on the village, we used to have a Building Society. The important phrase here is " we used to have."
Let's move onto school places. When I was chair of governors at what was then Hethersett Middle School we were often taken to appeal by parents who had been refused a place for their children at the school. It was a horrible situation and one of the reasons I retired from the post of chair.
It was very much a Catch 22 situation. For many years the maximum class size was set at I believe 32 with two classes at each age group. We looked at the possible likely number of new intake pupils and felt this was the right number. I remember raising this to 33 per class but stating that this was the maximum that could be allowed, thinking about the well being of the existing children and the staff and stopping a class from becoming unwieldy.
In those days we didn't have major development in the village so it was reasonably easy to assess how many children would be looking to enter the various year groups. Now making that assessment must be a nightmare.
The Catch 22 situation came from having to have a ceiling in numbers but wanting to be an open and welcoming school. A number of parents who had children turned down for places appealed to the county council but, as far as I can remember, those appeals were always turned down.
It was a horrible situation and one that is rearing it's ugly head once more.
I had a long conversation yesterday with Charlotte Screech who is just moving into the village from Buckinghamshire. Her son Elliot has just been accepted into year two at Hethersett VC Primary School.
Charlotte had to fight tooth and nail to get him there and it was only thanks to the support of the Head Teacher that Elliot has been accepted - something Charlotte says she is very grateful for.
Her frustrations are only too easy to understand and remember this is just one family moving into the village - there will be many more.
I agree with her that children living in Hethersett should be guaranteed places in the village schools. If they aren't there is an obvious knock on effect. If they have to travel miles to school they could be denying a boy or girl living locally a place in that school. "That doesn't seem right," Charlotte said.
In any logical world facilities should come before development but I'm not naive enough to think this will ever happen. I know that money and economics dictate otherwise but surely as development grows and more people move in we should be able to expect facilities to at the very least keep pace and not be eroded. We have a right to have these problems sorted out whatever colour is in power in Westminster.
I will be writing more along these lines in the coming edition of Hethersett Herald and also look at some of the other issues in the village such as bad parking and vandalism.
Your comments on what I've written today would be most welcome.