Councillor Update, October 2026, Conservative

 

A Web of Kindness

The people who hold Wardle together: a thank you from your West Littleborough, Shore and Wardle councillor

“We are all interconnected in a web of kindness from which it is impossible to separate ourselves. Everything we have and everything we enjoy, including our very life, is due to the kindness of others.”

These words remind us that our lives are sustained by countless acts of generosity and care. In Wardle alone, this spirit shines brightly through the dedicated efforts of Wardle Volunteers, Wardle in Bloom, Wardle Society, and Wardle Friends and Neighbours: the people and groups who bind, weave, and sustain the social fabric of our village.

Look around West Littleborough, Shore and Wardle and you can see that web at work.

It’s Wardle Volunteers, Wardle in Bloom, Wardle Society and Wardle Friends and Neighbours, quietly stitching the village together. It’s Craft Cottage and Artful, who helped bring the repair café to Wardle Library, where, among many others, John Leach gives up his time each month to mend what others would bin.

It’s Peter Thwaite, who organises the charge against the natural entropy of society, fighting the tide of litter, out with the litter pickers every other Tuesday. It’s Charlotte Taylor, one of many weekly Scout leaders, who, with the Squirrels at Wardle 1st Scouts, teaches children resilience and how to bounce back from the difficult tide of problems that life throws at us.

And at the centre sits the library and Jenny, whose warmth makes it the beating heart of the village, where societies meet and the repair café comes together each month.

In October, I spoke at committees for residents on planning applications, tackled the bureaucracy of our council, wrestled with bin collections and organised Wardle Carols, which has come under threat from so many sides. None of it works without these people: the people who report village issues to me, the people who get up and act. These are the volunteers I see in Wardle every day. Nobody pays them, and few thank them. So: thank you.

Cllr Adam Branton

adam.branton@rochdale.gov.uk

Could you spare a couple of hours on Christmas Eve? We’d love your help with Wardle Carols. Drop me a line and be a volunteer