11 minute read
Rural Matters - CPRE
RURAL MATTERS - monthly column from the CPRE
The World Becomes Welcoming and Good?
I love walking in the Dorset countryside, especially on the hills and downland. I gain a sense of achievement climbing to the top, which promises wonderful and often surprising views of our beautiful landscape.
In North Dorset, Hambledon, Bulbarrow, Melbury Beacon and Hod Hill are all favourites. All the seasons have their moments, but spring is very special as hedgerows first come alive with blackthorn blossom, and then the trees begin to leaf. The limey translucent colour of early beech leaves is magical, especially in juxtaposition to the vivid cobalt of a bluebell wood. Birdsong is a real pleasure then as migrating males arrive at their nesting grounds first, to be followed soon after by the female. Autumn is wonderful too with leaves turning colour from deep butter yellow to russet and copper. We are lucky here with lots of long distance walking trails, such as the Wessex Ridgeway, the Jubilee Trail, the Stour Valley Way and the longest of them all, the Hardy Way, which runs for no less than 220 miles through Thomas Hardy’s Wessex. There is an especially lovely part of it going from Batcombe to Plush along the northern ridge of the downland. A detour from Plush to the Lyscombe Valley to the east, with its restored chapel and ruined farm buildings, is an unforgettable experience.
Far from the madding crowds.
We are also fortunate that most walks in North Dorset are rarely crowded, unlike our Jurassic coast. I have to agree with Bill Bryson, our former CPRE President, in his book The Road to Little Dribbling: “What a joy walking is. All the cares of life, all the hopeless, inept f**kwits that God has strewn along the Bill Bryson Highway of Life suddenly seem far away and harmless, and the world becomes tranquil and welcoming and good.” The Covid Lockdown may have encouraged most of us to walk more, but still not enough. It would be great to see walking displace more short car journeys, thus easily reducing our carbon footprint. A generation ago 70% of British schoolchildren walked to school, now less than half do. It would be wonderful if local planning authorities and housing developers would invest in concepts like the 15-minute neighbourhood, where our workplaces and the services we regularly need can be reached in a short walk from our homes.
“What a joy walking The recent draft Dorset Council is. All the cares of life, Local Plan was singularly deficient in new ideas here.
Keep walking!
Rupert Hardy, Chairman North Dorset CPRE
The health benefits from walking are legion, and it is not just burning calories: • 5 minutes aids digestion • 20 minutes improves heart health • 30 minutes is good for weight loss, blood pressure and reduces the risk of diabetes • 40 minutes improves blood circulation and reduces stress • 50 minutes will strengthen muscles and improve productivity • 60 minutes relaxes your nerves and brain, increasing creativity.
Meet Your Local Shop (you’re eating all the pies)
Discover the faces and stories inside the village shop. This month we’ve been chatting to David Fawthrop who runs the Chettle Village store. How did you end up at the shop?
I started at Chettle Village Store about six months ago with a background in retail management and business development. I have run a successful farm shop and Café near Bath, and I spent three years doing business development for a charity retail operation. Following a rocky 2020 (being made redundant twice in the space of three months), I needed a new challenge. When I saw an advert for a ‘small village shop with big ambitions’ looking for a business development manager with a background in independent retail, I couldn’t believe my luck. Such a perfect role for me, and so close to home! Following a great conversation with the owner Alice Favre about her visions for the shop and the wider community, we found that we had a lot of shared concerns around the environment and the negative impact of intensive farming and supermarkets muscling out independent shops. I was offered the role, and so far it’s proven to be everything I hoped for.
How big is your team?
There are seven of us, a mix of Chettle residents and some from the neighbouring towns and villages. There’s always a friendly face in the shop to welcome you - a village shop isn’t just a place to buy your groceries and other essentials. We’re a cornerstone of the community, and a good chunk of the team’s day is spent catching up with locals and regulars and maintaining those invaluable relationships that make Chettle such a great community to be a part of.
Is there a ‘shop pet’?
Technically no... but the shop backs on to the neighbour’s garden, and we see a lot of their cat, several chickens, and two ducks called Crumpet and Mable who like hanging out in my office. Their lovely rascal of a dog called Moo quite often takes the opportunity to make a bolt for freedom through the shop forcing the staff to give chase, much to the entertainment of customers enjoying a pie and a coffee outside!
What’s flying off the shelves?
It’s the Pies! Pies Pies Pies! We sell a range of cooked pies and pasties that are renowned throughout the local area, and we get new customers on a daily basis telling us that they have heard by word of mouth how good our pies are. We’ve had to start offering them frozen to cook at home too! But people come for the pies and stay for the other local products we sell; including the wide selection of vegan, gluten free, dairy free and environmentally conscious foods we offer.
Tell us about your local suppliers?
We’re really proud of our relationship with local suppliers and are always keen to hear from local businesses, especially ones that share our values for locally sourced, organic, and sustainably produced goods. We get organic,
ethically sourced meat from Angel Cottage near Okeford Fitzpaine, organic bread from Long Crichel, cider from the Cranborne Chase, and fruit and veg grown naturally and unsprayed from Wimborne St. Giles. Overall, we have about a dozen suppliers based with 10 miles, and another 20 based within 30 miles.
What’s been your biggest challenge since taking over? What are you proud of?
Making sure we don’t become victims of our own success! This summer was the busiest in the shop’s history; bolstered by the campsite in the village and the thousands of tourists who would usually be off to Spain or Greece for their holidays. Keeping our tiny shop well stocked, keeping the staffing levels up and maintaining customer service whilst being more than twice as busy as usual has been challenging. I’ve been doing my fair share of 60 hour weeks!
What part of the shop is your absolute favourite?
It’s a cliché, but my favourite thing about the shop is the people. I get a tremendous sense of satisfaction from happy customers, and seeing staff go the extra mile.
What are you most proud of?
It’s the extra little things that we do for the community; yes we are running a shop, but we are also happy to take parcel deliveries for people in the village, stock cards and postcards designed by artists who shop with us, sell tickets for local events, sell produce grown in the village to raise money for community projects such as tree planning, or order in special requests to save villagers having to make a trip to a bigger town. We support local businesses and are at the heart of everything that makes Chettle so unique and special.
What’s happening now?
A big focus for us is minimising wastage. Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last 10 years, you’ll know coffee cups are a big offender! We recently started working with the Eco Coffee Company, a local coffee supplier, and now have fully bio-degradable takeaway coffee cups. We’ll shortly have a new coffee machine which collects the coffee grounds to turn in to fuel briquettes, used to roast the next batch of coffee. Lastly, we’ll be offering big discounts to customers who bring their own cups - keep an eye on Facebook and Instagram for details.
The Chettle Village Store is easily found by following the signs from the A354 between Blandford and Salisbury. The shop is in the heart of the village with ample roadside parking just opposite the playpark. If you’re condiering a pie, we recommend phoning to pre-order on 01258 830223 Opening hours are 8:30-18:00 Monday to Saturday, 10:00-14:00 on Sundays and Bank Holidays.
What’s next?
Huge plans! We’re bursting at the seams, and whilst the current shop is full of character, lack of space is holding us back. The plan is to move a few yards down the road to the old dairy farm. This is a big project, and will allow us to open a café as well. But moving the shop is just a small part of a much bigger vision for Chettle. We’re planning to overhaul food production in the village, producing much more of our own food using organic, sustainable, and agroecological farming techniques. The vision is to build a sustainable community, and the shop and café will be the public face of this vision for decades to come.
Free festival to showcase Dorset’s bright digital future
How will learning change for our children in the digital age? How is tourism reinventing itself? How could technology help improve wellbeing and independence? What does the future of agriculture look like and how can it support climate change?
To book your place, click the day you are interested in attending
Dorset may be a county steeped in tradition, picture postcard villages and old world charm. But it is also a leading proponent of cutting edge technology. The ground-breaking 5G RuralDorset project, backed by Dorset Council, has just scooped three national awards (see page XX), and Dorset Council were the 2020 winners of the national winner of the Digital Skills Award - given for the work going on across the county to help everyone in Dorset make the most of the digital tools available to them and make sure Dorset becomes a truly digital place. The new innovation centre - called Defence BattleLab - being built at Dorset Innovation Park, the site of the former Winfrith nuclear facility, has a £3.1 investment from the Ministry of Defence and £2.6m from Dorset Council and Dorset Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP). The BattleLab will allow defence personnel to work with academic institutions and private sector companies on new military technologies.
The Return of FutureFest
Dorset Council’s Festival of the Future is back - a five-day festival staged at locations across Dorset next week to showcase the county’s exciting digital future. In 2020 the first Festival of the Future was by necessity a Zoomonly online event. Thanks to its 2020 success, tis year the festival is back, this time in a hybrid format. Dorset Council’s deputy leader, Cllr Peter Wharf, said: “Our festival will be a fully-fledged hybrid experience where we will be live with a local audience and available online for people to view as a live broadcast. It promises to be a lot of fun, very exciting and enlightening as we look into what our future holds – and best of all it is completely free to attend.”
Held from 4th to 8th October, #FutureFest21 will highlight the innovation and technology that is set to transform the county as a place to live, work, visit, learn and do business in.
What is happening
Each day of the festival has a different theme, and the guest speakers are all leaders in their fields:
• Monday
The business world takes centre stage live from the
Dorset Innovation Park in Winfrith. See how the defence industry created the unique BattleLab to trial new innovations and hear how digital can underpin Dorset’s future economy.
• Tuesday
Live from Shaftesbury and future of education.
The festival goes back to school to ask what will the classroom of the future look
like? • Wednesday is Tourism
Day - industry and digital leaders will discuss how innovation can enhance and revolutionise the industry and the visitor experience. • Thursday is all about rural affairs and the environment.
Live from a farm near
Blandford, experts will demonstrate the latest innovations in farming; technical ways of monitoring production and how a new breed of robots can zap weeds and improve yields.
In the afternoon session, the festival will explore the climate and ecological emergency in Dorset; considering aquaculture, the natural environment and how Low Carbon Dorset is helping organisations reduce their energy carbon footprint. • Friday is on the very important subject of innovation in health and social care, and will be shared from Moors Valley
Country Park.
The morning session will look at how technology can help people live independently and how the pandemic changed services.
The final afternoon will see the festival end on a high talking about digital leadership and promoting wellbeing. Dorset Council’s chief executive, Matt Prosser, said: “We hope as many people as possible with an interest in business, tourism, education, rural affairs and health and social care come and join us for our Festival of the Future 21 – either in person or online.”
For more details and to book free tickets go to www. dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/festival-ofthe-future-2021
