IT may be too soon for most of us to start thinking of next December's Christmas parcels, but the folk of Wyre Piddle can be forgiven for anticipating something special arriving on their doorsteps as the festive season starts in 2002.

After a wait of 31 years, there's less than a year to go before they can expect to celebrate the opening of their bypass.

We suspect that the deepest sigh of relief might come from the Boddy family.

They're still counting their blessings following the day in 1997 when a car crashed with a tanker on the B4084 and ended up just yards from where daughter Emily would normally have been playing.

The scare came at a time which remains both a low point in the road's safety record and a high point in the anxiety level suffered by villagers.

It was the fifth crash in a fortnight, and the fear of what might have been was matched in dad Dave Boddy's mind by what it would take to convince the county council and Government to work together to build the road.

It's to Mid-Worcestershire MP Peter Luff's eternal credit that, when it seemed as though the village was being used as a political football, he cut through the nonsense and provided the campaign with critical momentum.

Without the persistence of a generation or more of residents, however, it wouldn't even have reached the point where he could add his weight to the cause.

With traffic levels on the route expected to have doubled between 1995 and 2015, we hope that resolve is never tested again.