THE proposal by Herefordshire Council to close Dilwyn CE Primary School is of far more consequence to our county than just to the village of Dilwyn.

We have for many years, and under successive and different political parties, been controlled largely by urban administrations both in central and local government, simply because it is urban areas that carry the most votes.

The concerns of the countryside, of our farming and village communities, have been given scant regard by successive governments.

And when government does turn towards the countryside it is often to impose urban considerations which have an adverse effect on our rural way of life: the right to roam, the Hunting Act, excessive bureaucracy in livestock management and a host of other restrictions and regulations that make life progressively more difficult for those that work and live in the countryside. Village Post Offices, shops, pubs and schools have closed.

There are inadequate transport services and inadequate affordable housing.

Our council devotes far more of its time to the concerns of the city of Hereford than to the countryside that surrounds it. Yet it is in the English village that the heart and spirit of this country resides and we are in real danger of slowly and progressively taking the heart out of our village communities. If they become just residential locations with no sense of social cohesion and unity then we will have lost something very precious that can never be replaced.

Dilwyn School, for example, is not a failing school and it has exciting plans to federate with the excellent St Mary’s High School. Under that federation it has a financially and academically secure future.

Our council nevertheless intends to order its closure largely on the grounds that it costs more per pupil in small schools than in large. But all amenities in small villages cost more per head than in larger population centres. This, then, would appear to be the thin edge of a very dangerous wedge, or perhaps rather the continuation of policies that result in the concentration of all amenities – pubs, schools, post offices – in urban centres; policies that are destroying our rural way of life.

Today it is Dilwyn, tomorrow, who knows? The council has publicly declared that it considers a primary school must have at least 60 pupils to be viable.

A lovely small school in a lovely village with a very strong sense of community, where the children are happy, secure and well taught with a real prospect of successful federation is to be sacrificed for minimal or quite possibly even no financial benefit.

Herefordshire is a very special county. Our village communities are at the heart of its character and village schools are at the heart of these communities.

No village school should ever be closed unless and until it has failed in teaching or is not financially viable.

The governors, headteachers and staff of both Dilwyn School and St Mary’s High School are all convinced that Dilwyn School, under federation, will succeed and grow, yet Herefordshire Council is not prepared to even give federation with St Mary’s the chance to work.

If this is its attitude to Dilwyn then it is perhaps indicative of its general lack of concern for our village communities.

Surprisingly, for a Conservative council, this runs counter to current central government policies which support devolution, decentralisation, more power to parish councils and more parental choice in education.

JOHN SPACKMAN, Dilwyn, Herefordshire.