Thornton Hough feel they are bucking the trend of British villages' demise

Jul 8 2009 by Matt Hurst, Birkenhead News

It’s a point emphasised by barman, Phil Town, who travels from his Neston home to work at the Seven Stars.

Phil said: “The benefit of Wirral is we can be 20 minutes from Liverpool and 20 minutes from Chester and then half-an-hour from North Wales and the countryside.”

But life-long Thornton Hough resident, Dave Jones feels there could be future problems as the village’s unusual provenance means many properties are only available for rent.

Dave said: “There aren’t many private houses for sale and if they are, they’re very expensive.

“In the village itself, they are mostly rented and there also aren’t a great deal of young families.”

One person improving those facilities is Karen Jones, who set up a shop and cafe selling locally produced fruit, vegetables, cake and bread in the village hall.

Hall manager Karen said: “This has only been running for twelve months, after we secured some funding we had applied for, and it’s part of an idea to involve local farmers and their produce.

“It’s available to people because we don’t really have a shop in the village that could supply this produce.

“We have quite a lot of elderly here and it’s just something that’s there locally for them.

“If somebody has no transport or no-one to rely on, then it’s all here for them.

“We’ve got a local bakery for bread and cakes and a local farm producing fruit and veg.

“It’s very important for somewhere like here.”

And according to Karen a key component is the local paper.

She said: “People appreciate having the News, they can come in here and collect it

“It’s nice to have some sort of read, a free read, that tells you what’s going on locally.”

In response to the report, a Communities and Local Government spokesman said plans were in place to provide 10,000 new rural homes over the next three years.