Thoughts from Lickey End

Parish the thought

Lickey End is a lovely place, but it can seem a little confused about its identity at times. When I tell people where I live, they either snigger because the name sounds rude, or gasp in awe that I live so close to the fabled Lickey Incline (the steepest bit of railway line in the country) and the marvellous Tardebigge Tunnel (the longest flight of canal locks in the country). Or they just look blank.

When I tell those whom I shall uncharitably term "anoraks" that I have never been on the local railway, or, until recently, walked along the canal, they look dumbfounded, as if I had been offered and refused the Nobel Peace Prize. Perhaps it's just that being so close, they lose their aura. If you had to pick out the things that characterised or formed the identity of Lickey End, most locals wouldn't include the proximity to the railway or the canal. It seems that the Parish Council would also fall into a black hole.

Lickey End didn't use to have a parish council. Perhaps we're not part of a parish? As a Baptist I wouldn't know, but I would have thought that everyone belongs to some parish. Be that as it may, we didn't have a parish council, but then some bright spark thought that we ought to have one, and petitioned the District Council who duly organised a referendum. Having got a majority for the council, it was duly established. This is where it gets confusing. You would have thought that the referendum indicated broad support for the new parish council, but it doesn't seem that way, for when the elections for parish councillors was organised, several people stood as the "Anti-Parish Council Party", whose manifesto was to seek abolition of the council. Amazingly, they won the very first election, despite the referendum, so we now have a parish council who are dedicated to doing nothing but their minimum statutory duties, spending no money, and seeking the dissolution of the newly-formed Lickey End Parish Council, which, I understand, has now been agreed in principle.

Perhaps this is the malaise of the 21st century, that we don't know what we want, but we are going to make sure we get it.

posted by Neil @ 9:38 AM