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Community spirit evaporates when asked to pick up the dog ends.....

I’m afraid it seems that some people have moved to Hawkinge to join a village community. 

They may well be disappointed with the reality. 

Just recently a poster on the Chatterbox was optimistic of a transformation within the village after they had visited the well attended Hawkinge Fun Day.

It was a hot day, and sure it attracted lots of visitors, but things don’t change overnight, nor in my case over the seven years since I moved into a considerably smaller Hawkinge. 

The so called village can better be described as the Tin Man, with no heart. An embryonic clone of Milton Keynes set in a rural area of South East Kent, it has more in common with South Ashford than Lyminge or Capel-le-Ferne. So don't lets get carried away with the notion that one swallow makes a summer. 

It doesn't; just ask Cyril Trice, who has been working for six months arranging the second of his village clean up days.

A week after the Fun Day, just seven local volunteers turned up to help. 

People are willing to turn up for the beer and skittles, but the community spirit evaporates when asked to pick up the dog ends and beer cans.

Are the villagers to blame? I think not. The malaise can be placed firmly on the shoulders of the local authority allowing plans which provided precious little infrastructure and which forced the population out of the village for their shopping, leisure, entertainment and employment. How can that be conducive to a  village community, or any sort of community come to that?

I rest my case.

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