CONGRATULATIONS to Paul Robinson, appointed as Bury's new "countryside champion". Let's hope he is as successful in promoting Bury's rural areas as his proactive counterparts in Bolton have been.

News of his appointment was a little surprising, however, for when Affetside School campaigners mentioned the Government's "presumption against closure of rural schools", both LEA and councillors declared Bury to be an urban borough with no rural schools. This view was proffered despite the Countryside Agency's various stated conclusions that the West Pennine Moors are rural, alongside the fringes of Greater Manchester and Liverpool. The Agency, indeed, states that isolation is not a pre-condition of rurality, and offers useful information to bureaucrats and politicians on the rural proofing of their policies.

I bow to the Commission's superior judgement on this issue and question whether, in practice, Bury's refusal to accept rurality may simply have been an admission of failure to apply for any of the plethora of rural grants available to revitalise the countryside in the wake of the foot and mouth crisis.

One tiresomely repetitive, unfair and ignorant suggestion is that Affetside School does not serve the children of the village. Anyone who knows the village will, of course, be aware that Affetside is not a nucleated settlement but rather a linear accumulation of houses along Watling Street, together with a much more dispersed development pattern in the rural hinterland.

This wider rural area crosses the local administrative boundaries. The existence of such artificial administrative boundaries in no way diminishes the nature of the association those residences enjoy with the community of Affetside.

The development pattern is entirely typical of those small rural settlements that lie in a belt between Belmont and Winter Hill in the West to Holcombe Brook and Tottington in the East, that is the area over which the Greater Manchester green belt has been designated to protect the countryside from the outward expansion of Manchester. Look to history and the facts!

Sometimes, events speak for themselves. On May 9, parents at Affetside School witnessed a farming parent and the head teacher entering Jack Lord's field to rescue a ewe, which resides in a "non-rural" area.

The unfortunate creature was stuck upside down against a fence. One of our highly knowledgeable non-rural farming children, aged 7, explained in graphic terms that a sheep in such a position has about an hour to live. Readers will be fascinated to know that such sheep quickly lose their balance, they vomit and then choke to death. Luckily, the said ewe was, with expert help, successfully righted; she promptly regained her equilibrium, and lived to tell the tale to all her friends who live in "'non-rural" Affetside.

Mr Robinson will be most welcome to visit this rural outpost of urban Bury. He might like to see the ducks on the millennium pond, and have a chat with Tony, the duck man, about their upkeep. He may wish to wonder at the spectacular views over the West Pennine Moors.

Affetside resident, Nigel Wilcock will, I'm sure, be very happy to give him a guided tour and to discuss the future of this rural corner of Bury. He may even take him for a pint at the village pub, to escape the inevitable torrential downpour which Affetside is famous for.

DAWN ROBINSON-WALSH