A Contented Village with Few Problems
Ask a Preston Capes man about councils, local government, community problems and public services, and he may well look back with an eyeful of amazement, not to say disinterest.
A very small one it may well be, but this village really is a world on its own.
To many outsiders it would most likely seem incredible that a community can live without all the usual public services. But to the people of Preston Capes a post office for stamps and pensions inside the village, and a telephone kiosk for contacting the outside world, are quite enough.
Or if any do not like it the way it is, then they are certainly not letting the right people know.
Mrs. V. Bevan has been a Daventry rural district councilor for the past seven months, and in that time it has been made quite clear that she need not expect a lot of work to do in the way of Preston Capes problems.
"Apart form the old problem of sewerage, Preston Capes has few mentions on RDC agendas," said Mrs. Bevan. "Everybody here is quite contented as things are."
About the sewerage problem, Mrs. Bevan said: "We have been pressing for many years for the village to be included on the council sewerage system but we still have individual septic tanks. The trouble is that the building of a few new houses in the past year or two has made no difference to the situation. However if much building is done in coming years, I do not think that it would have much bearing."
Bearing on the sewerage or no, there is unlikely to be much building of new houses in Preston Capes for many years to come. A total of seven new houses, including four council properties, have been built here during the last 20 years.
The village has a very tight expansion boundary line, meaning that the only building that can be done will have to come in the shape of in-filling.
Chairman of the parish meeting, Mr. C Haynes, like Mrs. Bevan, reports that sewerage is the village's only real problem, and that there is nothing the parish meeting can do about it.