A helping hand for wildlife habitats

DOOR-TO-DOOR canvassing is a great eye-opener, you might even say an education, for politicians in regard to changes in the countryside.

Nearly every TD, potential TD and canvasser I met during the election campaign commented on huge changes in the landscape and in the streetscape of towns and villages since they last wore out their shoe leather in the quest for votes, five years ago.

Where they remembered green fields, one-off houses, sometimes estates, had mushroomed. New shops, American-style, glass-walled car salesrooms and sprawling retail units were also in evidence. All signs of the economic boom, they noted.