On Saturday I held a drop-in surgery in the Memorial Hall in Sheepy Magna for residents of that village and nearby area. It is a great hall dedicated to the men and one woman of the village who gave their lives in service of their country during the two World Wars. The photos of the dead are on display. The hall is roomy, with a well-equipped kitchen and toilets. It used to be a Methodist chapel, and you can still see marks on the walls where the church fittings once stood.
I had a number of people come in. By a long way the most significant comment was about the speed of vehicles on Main Street, which is also the B4116. The speed limit was 30mph, but many vehicles sped by much faster than that. The police, I was told, never come to enforce the speed limit. Another comment was about burglary in the area, both in Sheepy Magna and in Orton on the Hill.
In general the people I spoke to seemed fairly content with the way the police handled crime, but there was a feeling that it would be nice to see the police more often, especially when it came to enforcing the speed limit.
