at the Village Hall, starting at 7:30 pm.
There was a short AGM for about 30 minutes at the beginning of the meeting to elect group officers and review the Group’s accounts.
Agenda for the AGM
- Approve minutes of 2023 AGM (see here)
- Chair’s Report
- Treasurer’s Report (annual accounts are here)
- Election of Officers
- Chair
- Treasurer
- Secretary
- AOB
13 members present in the village hall (including committee). Appologies from 3 members.
Minutes
Minutes of the 2023 AGM were approved (proposed Chris Warwick, seconded Graham Sumner)
Chair’s report
Giles Barwell read out his Chair’s report, which can be found below.
Treasurer’s report
The treasurer presented the accounts.
Meeting resolved to accept the accounts and agree that all officers should be bank signatories (proposed Sue Greatbanks, seconded Graham Sumner)
Election of officers
Sustainable Harwell has a Chair, a Treasurer and a Secretary. These posts were all up for re-election.
The existing officers are prepared to stand again, and there were no other members wishing to join the committtee.
Appointment of officers was agreed as follows ((proposed Sue Greatbanks, seconded Chris Warwick)
Chair – Giles Barwell
Treasurer – David Marsh
Secretary – Penny Kinloch
AOB
End of Formal AGM
“Harwell Green Homes”
There are many things that can be done to reduce our environmental footprint. An area which has a big impact is to improve the environmental credentials of the homes we live in.
Four local residents spoke about what they have done recently to decarbonise their homes, including fitting solar panels, home batteries and heat pumps.
Speakers shared their real-world experiences to provide practical insight about what can be done here in Harwell.
Chair’s Report
The Group has continued to operate successfully over the last 12 months, and although it has not grown in size, membership has remained stable at around 100 members in the village and the local area. Throughout the year, The Group’s officers have attempted to ensure that the focus of activities remains firmly on making sustainability improvements within Harwell parish.
Group Projects
Tree-planting
HARCOG, the orchard subgroup, have continued to work in combination with the Parish Council to improve and maintain the community orchard at The Rec.
The following summary is from Penny Kinloch
Our willing and able band of helpers have been busy maintaining the Orchard now that the trees and hedging are established. We have weeded and pruned the hedging and cut back most of the briar roses as they are rather vigorous and have been swamping some of the smaller whips. We will continue to weed and mulch the hedging for the time being.
Last year we were advised to remove any fruits that were forming on the trees to return the nutrients back to the trees to encourage more vigorous growth. This year we had an encouraging crop of fruits – the cherries were very successful, so too the apples and plums. The pears haven’t done so well as they have a bit of disease on the leaves which has hampered the fruit production. Overall though, we are very pleased with the amount of fruit that has developed this year. There have been few windfalls so we presume people have picked and eaten the fruits, which is just what we want. The fruit is for everyone, not just for the people who sponsored a tree.
We need to replace a couple of trees that haven’t survived and will do this in the next planting season this autumn. We are still designing the signboard which will be placed at the entrance to the Orchard, giving details of the trees and a little bit of the history of the Orchard and why we chose the variety of trees that we did. It is lovely to see that the Orchard is being used – we can tell how much it is frequented by how full the litter bin is – and we have received some kind compliments. Many thanks to everyone who has helped and is still helping with the Orchard – your input is invaluable and has made it the success it is.
Holloway hedgerow
Over the course of the year the Group have been planning a new sustainability project in the village to plant a hedgerow along the Holloway to Chilton. This is quite a large piece of work which is likely to be undertaken in stages over a number of years. When complete it will provide a valuable new wildlife corridor to help improve biodiversity as well as delivering many other benefits along the route.
The landowners adjacent to the Harwell Parish part of the Holloway have been approached and are very supportive. A number of SusH members have also expressed their interest in helping with planting. We have approached the Parish Council and are hopeful they will support the plan. We will also be approaching Oxfordshire County Council to secure permission as we understand they are responsible for the maintenance of bridleways like the Holloway.
We have recently identified and started applying for a grant scheme to purchase the first batch of whips needed for this coming winter planting season and are hoping that we will be able start planting a 100/200m stretch early in 2025.
The cycling and footpaths subgroup
Another 12 months have gone by and Harwell is still waiting for the he roll out of the 20 MPH speed limit and traffic calming measures in the village which the group previously lobbied for. Despite a new consultation on revised traffic calming measures being conducted many months ago there is still no sign of progress. We have recently asked for an update on the situation from local councillors and await news on this with eager anticipation!
Lobbying for new local homes to be more sustainable
If you’ve travelled along the A4130 during the last year you can’t fail to notice the building work going on at the first phase of the Valley Park development.
The group have long been advocating that these new homes being built there should have solar panels on all suitable roofs as well as heat pumps fitted. Together with the Harwell Swifts group we also pushed for more swift boxes to be installed at the site to further support the local swift population. Recently its been good to see solar panels being installed on the new houses and we were also pleased to learn about a large delivery of swift bricks to the site which will be built into the new dwellings.
HarCars – community car sharing
One of the projects the Group has been running over the last year has been to look at options for an electric car sharing scheme in the village. Financial support for this work has been kindly provided by The Vale of The White Horse Climate Action Fund.
The initial survey we conducted indicated there is quite a high level of support for a car sharing scheme in the village and after further investigation of options the team working on the project decided that a Peer to Peer car scheme might be possible.
Having looked at this further it is not clear who could run an operation like this in Harwell and therefore unfortunately at the moment it is unlikely to go ahead. The team are now closing the project and will return unspent grant funds to the Climate Action Fund. If you are interested in details of the work or think car-sharing is something you could help make happen in the village, please get in touch for more information and to discuss what might be possible. More details are available on the SusH web-suite.
Other Initiatives
Sustainable Harwell supports solar panels on new barn
SusH officers recently considered a request for the group to support the installation of solar panels on a new barn in the village. After discussion the officers agreed the following statement:
“Sustainable Harwell (SusH), a Community Action Group operating in the village, undertakes projects to tackle climate change, reduce waste and pollution and improve our environment. One of the group projects, endorsed by all members, is to lobby for new-build houses in the area to be more sustainable.
Whilst this is not a new house, the principle is that all new buildings should be sustainable. Solar panels are best placed on roofs, so the new barn is an ideal location.
SusH has also supported solar panels on two community centres (the village hall and the Harwellian sports and social club) and supports provision of solar panels on as many roofs as possible”.
The Group has continued to maintain an active relationship with the Harwell Swifts group during the year. The following report written for the recent newsletter by Jerry Pride summarises their activities.
The weather has not been so good for swifts this year, but it has been a good year for Harwell Swifts.
We have installed 36 boxes so far this year including four boxes in the church bell tower, and we are continuing with house surveys and box installs.
We have seen several boxes occupied for the first time this year, and we have seen several new boxes prospected by non-breeders, so we are optimistic that there will be more breeding birds in Harwell next year.
Surprisingly, we have found a small colony of swifts in Great Western Park. Unlike the majority of new houses these have open eaves and it appears that swifts have found a place to nest in them. We are keen to promote swift conservation there, so if you know anyone living near Daniel Shepherd Avenue please let us know.
And finally on 8th August Action for Swifts delivered 200 swift bricks to Taylor Wimpey at Valley Park for installing in the first phase of new houses. This is a very significant milestone and all thanks to the persistence of Kate Lilley and others.
The group has an active WhatsApp group this year to aid communication and transmission of interesting information between group members. Anyone can join and if you haven’t yet and would like to you would be very welcome. Just send an email to Sustainable Harwell and we will send you joining instructions.
Other Groups and organisations
The Group continued with its membership of Community Action Groups (CAG) Oxfordshire and receives valuable information and support from them.
We also continued our membership of The Low Carbon Hub in Oxford. As part of this network of 39 other community groups we benefit from the support and opportunities that they can offer in generating renewable energy and energy saving projects. You might remember that last year they were kind enough to provide £5k of grant funding through Sustainable Harwell to support the solar installations at The Village Hall and The Harwellian. They also ran their “Big Autumn Get Together” a community event for members at The Village Hall for their members.
Sustainable Harwell is also a member of Friends of the Earth and receives support from them including group insurance. We continue to work loosely with the Oxford branch.
Group Meetings
We have held a number of group meetings throughout the year and once again, we’ve heard from several expert speakers. In October last year Megan Gimber from The People’s Trust for Endangered Species posed the question: What have hedgerows ever done for us? And what we can do for them in return?
At our Feb meeting Malcolm Thick talked expertly about the advantages and disadvantages of planting fruit-trees casually in hedgerows and fields. This was followed by a talk by Martin Ricketts about plans for the Community Orchard project.
At the May meeting Sonya Bedford, the Vice Chair of Green Wedmore provided a fascinating talk entitled “taking a village to zero carbon”. This provided much information and generated a number of future ideas about what we could do here in Harwell.
Later tonight we will hear from some local residents about their experiences in de-carbonising their homes to support the vital transition to net-zero.
Just to remind you that more information about all these talks and the activities and wider work the group is involved with is available here on our web site.
I’d like to take this opportunity to thank my fellow officers in the Group. David Marsh our Treasurer, for keeping the financial activities of the Group in order as well as devoting a lot of time ensuring the web site is up to date and Penny Kinloch our Group Sceretary who has played an important part in steering group activities throughout the year. Both have kindly offered to continue in their roles for a further year.
Finally, I would like to say a thanks to all the group members who have given up the time to work on projects, attend meetings and get involved with other activities throughout the year. Without their involvement many of the things I have outlined above would not have happened.
Giles Barwell
Chair
Oct 2024
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