I thought I’d start by saying how wonderful the village looked during the Jubilee weekend, huge credit to the team who produced the bunting and the patriotic pots. I helped put up the bunting and it did seem we had an awful lot of it in the village. It was such a shame to see that the night we had decorated the village that someone saw fit to vandalise the Post Box and the wonderful knitted tribute.
On a more positive note, the first stage of improvements to the children’s play area on the Rec is progressing, a contractor has been appointed and work will begin towards the end of the Summer, this is taking so long due to the long lead times for some of the new equipment. There will be further improvements both here and at Jos Lane once we get the monies from the houses being built on Abbey Road.
This month has also seen the wall outside the Library car park altered and reduced in height to improve the manoeuvrability in the car park. This was one of the suggestions from the “Ask Shepley” initiative we undertook pre-pandemic and glad to see something finally delivered. I am at the moment leading a similar initiative, “Ask Burton” in Kirkburton & Highburton.
Another initiative which I am working on at the moment is the biennial Wovern Festivel which will be taking place again in 2023, you’ll no doubt remember us yarn bombing parts of the village, including the return of the Shepley Lion, made of wool last year. There is a slightly different emphasis next year with us promoting the use of natural dyes and encouraging people to grow small colour gardens, which are ones with plants that can be used for dying. More on this can be found at https://woveninkirklees.co.uk/projects/growing-colour-together/
This month will also see the public meeting in the village to look at the issues we have with traffic and speeding. I am pleased that in response to the Q & A session by our MP that he, the Police and the new Head of Highways have agreed to attend this meeting and hopefully we can find some ways forward.
I am also looking forward to the second of the Food Waste Workshops which I am hosting on 3rd August at Cliffe House, further details about which can be found elsewhere in the magazine.
