News

Monday marks the beginning of Village Halls Week a national campaign, shining a spotlight on the contribution England’s 10,000+ village halls make to rural communities. It is an opportunity for hall management committees to celebrate their work and get inspiration from others.

The fifth annual campaign challenges halls to do something different and innovate for the future.

Halls do much to improve life for local residents, often providing the only local space where people gather, combating loneliness, and delivering a wide range of activities and services.

Each week day of Village Halls Week has a different theme, halls are encouraged to share what they are doing or pledge something for the future within each theme. Bishopswood Village Hall will be sharing it’s stories and pledges each day on the Bishopswood Village Website and social media, so visit each day to keep up.

For more information visit the ACRE website.

On Saturday 29th January 10:00am until 12.00 noon we will be holding a coffee morning at the hall, where you can come along and chat about any ideas that you have for the future of the hall, we would love to hear from you.

You can buy the book here: www.winterscar.co.uk 

Hello! 

I have recently become a member of our local WI and we wanted to ask a few questions to see if we can encourage more people to join. 

It would be wonderful to hear from you and to know your thoughts on the following: 

1. What day of the week works best for you to join?  We are currently running on a Friday afternoon once a month.
2. Would a summer evening session and a winter afternoon session be practical?  If not please state what would work best (afternoons or early evenings).
3. There have been mummering’s of leaving the WI and branching out as an independent group – would that be of interest to you?
4. Would you be interested in coming along to an introductory session to find out more before joining?

Please write back to: jacquinaomi@gmail.com  You are welcome to add any other comments to help us build a picture of what our local community needs are for the continued future of this group.

Thank you for your input

Jacqui Young

Now that the Covid-19 numbers are falling we feel it appropriate to reschedule this postponed public meeting. Please pass this information on to your friends and neighbours to make as many parishioners as possible aware of the meeting date.

The popularity of outdoor activities in the UK has grown significantly over the past few years, with the Wye Valley and River a major attraction. The stretch of river from Ross-on-wye to Symonds Yat is a particularly popular destination for canoeists, stand up paddleboarders and wild swimmers. But uncontrolled demand is already damaging the very things that make the area such a draw, and with this comes increased environmental and local community pressures.

At Kerne Bridge the canoe launch, community and environment are struggling to remain in balance due to the growth in visitor numbers, bringing with it increased road and pedestrian traffic, overcrowded car parking facilities, public toilets that can’t cope with the demand, and interference with local community pastimes. This is unsatisfactory for our visitors; frustrating for the community; and increasingly damaging for the environment.

It is time to act before our amenities and environment are damaged significantly. If we in this community don’t do something, no-one else will, because no one else shares the full impact of this damage. A group of like-minded parishioners have drawn up several ideas aimed at restoring and managing a balance between tourism, community, and environment to ensure that each has a long-term sustainable future.

An outline of those ideas has been presented to the Parish Council, who have indicated their support. Clearly the involvement and agreement of stakeholders such as the canoe companies, the launch management company, Parish and Herefordshire councils, AONB, Natural England etc. will be required as a more concrete plan emerges.

But first, we want parishioners’ input and are therefore holding a public meeting to discuss current issues, possible mitigations and begin building a robust plan for future action. The rescheduled meeting will be held Friday 11th February 2022 7:30pm at Bishopswood Village Hall. Please come along and give us your thoughts and together we can build a better Bishopswood.

Consultation on the options for the location and scale of new development throughout the county is now live and will run until 28 February 2022.

The new document, which will replace the current Core Strategy, will determine growth and development across the county over the next 20 years. It will ensure that we deliver the required housing, alongside the jobs, and supporting community infrastructure and services in a way that is appropriate for the rural nature and historic character of the County. 

Click on this link to read more and Have your say on the new Herefordshire Local Plan – Herefordshire Council!