Weds 5th July starting at 7:30 pm at The Village Hall (Cherry Hall)
Meeting notes
13 attendees
GB updated people on:
Tree planting – the whips at the School and Winnaway need to be visited and the tree guards removed; Community Orchard – planting almost completed; regular maintenance needed.
Cycling – still awaiting the decision on 20mph through the Village.
More sustainable housing developments – Taylor Wimpey confirmed solar panels will be standard in Primrose Gardens at Valley Park; swift bricks will also be supplied by Taylor Wimpey; no sign of heat pumps being fitted as standard and they will need to be retrofitted which seems a huge waste or resources and opportunity.
HarCars – new project to investigate if there is an appetite for an EV car sharing scheme. Questionnaire already in the public domain. Someone needs to run the project if it gets under way – possibly a commercial organisation. CW requested Google forms not be used in future. A reminder needs to be sent out to get more responses. SM to post on the Orchard View Whatsapp group. GB to check with CG if she needs help with posting on both the Sustainable Harwell Facebook page and the Village Community page. Offers from SP and SM to help with this. CW to ask The Harwellian to post it too.
£5k grant was awarded by the Low Carbon Hub to be split between the Village Hall and the Harwellian.
Everyone agreed for GB to fill in forms re Low Carbon Hub IPS £1 share stake.
Ideas needed to help the Village get to net zero and address the biodiversity crisis. GB discussed the idea of making a wildlife corridor between Harwell and Chilton along the Holloway. This seemed well supported by those present.
See Slideshow for more details.
Watch video of suggested wildlife corridor / hedging area
(added Nov 2024, 130MB MP4 file)
GB also suggested a survey to give a baseline of where the Village is at present in carbon terms. National Census data could be used. The village of Wedmore has become net zero through electrification of houses, transport and food. Contact them for ideas.
In other news
Your help needed
Would you use a community Electric Vehicle (EV) car sharing scheme in Harwell?
You may know the group is currently undertaking a project to understand the appetite and options for running a community car-sharing club using electric vehicles (EVs) in the village and we would really welcome your help.
Imagine this: A central location in Harwell where you can find a shared electric car that you can book for the time you need.
Using a shared EV could:
– save up to 50% compared to the cost of owning and running a car
– save 60-80% carbon emissions compared to driving a petrol car
– give you independence if you don’t own a car
– provide access to an additional car
The first stage of this project is to reach out as widely as possible to Harwell residents to understand their view about the idea by way of a short questionnaire. If you would like to help we would be really grateful if you could spend a few minutes completing a short on-line survey on the Sustainable Harwell website here
Paper copies of the survey are also available at The Harwellian and all information is collected anonymously.
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