ADRIAN KIBBLER looks back on an extraordinary and difficult year.

Someone I know has described 2016 as our own ‘Arab Spring’ which is a way of saying that in so many ways it has confounded expectations.

In the world of sport, no-one would dare to have suggested that Leicester City would have won the Premier League – an outcome that will still be talked about when children who support the Foxes are in their old age.

Then we had Brexit which will have a huge impact upon our lives for many years. The ‘experts’ had predicted a ‘Remain’ win but on reflection perhaps we should not have been so surprised.

Opinions ranged from ‘UK Independence Day’ to a huge act of national self-harm.

To end the year on the other side of the Atlantic, we had the again ‘unexpected’ victory of Donald Trump – again another beneficiary of a loathing of the ‘political class.’

Issues like Brexit and the US Presidency may seem a long way away but they are important because they will indirectly have an important impact upon the lives of people living in south Shropshire and the Teme Valley.

Closer to home, businesses in both Ludlow and Tenbury continue to struggle in the face of what the Institute for Fiscal Studies has described as the worst decade for living standards since the 1920s. If they are correct, and please let us hope they are not, people will be earning on average less in 2021 than they were in 2008?

After six years of waiting, the Tesco supermarket is going ahead in Tenbury at least clarifying the position but only time will tell if it will prove a benefit or curse for the town.

In Ludlow, traders have been fighting their own battle against a proposed new supermarket on the edge of town. Opponents of the scheme like the Chamber of Trade have been highly vocal but, amongst the wider community, opinion is divided.

Health continues to be the number one issue in Ludlow where, four years after the loss at the 11th hour of the promised £26 million new hospital and health village, it remains unclear what the future holds for the existing hospital.

Environmental issues have played big in 2016 with a lot of controversy about solar farms with a general view that they and sustainable energy are a good thing, providing they spoil someone else’s view.

The same applies with housing where there is a recognition that more homes are needed but no shortage of opposition when schemes come before planners.

All of these issues are, of course, desperately important but it is the human stories that tug at the heart strings.

The death of charity fundraiser and disabilities champion Jack Andow in the autumn was sad but the passing of little Jack Edwards whose brave fight against leukaemia was lost in August was tragic.

Although at different ends of the age range both were inspirational.