7 minute read
Environment
Families for trees
Alex Limberg
IT’S been a busy spring of tree planting in Pensford, supported by the Chew Valley Plants Trees project, with up to 60 trees planted around the village playing fields alone.
The Conservation Volunteers have been giving away 600 trees and shrubs to be planted around the area. Planting will resume in the autumn.
Alex Limberg, from CVPT, said: “Without more trees and a better network of hedgerows the rich diversity here will become increasingly depleted, and climate change will be irreversible. Planting trees is one tool in our tool box of actions to prevent climate change escalating.”
Various families were invited to plant a few trees, including Nick and Trina Anstey with their children Luke and Izzy from Hillcrest in Pensford.
The Anstey family
Funding for projects
WESSEXWater is providing financial support to environmental projects across the South West through its new Environment Fund. Applications must be made before June 4th and community groups can apply for up to £1,500.
Kirsty Scarlett, Wessex Water’s Head of Community Engagement, said: “We are really pleased to be able to support communities that are passionate about protecting and improving their local area.”
Forest plan branches out to gardens
Members of the council’s parks and green spaces team at the first giveaway in Radstock
A CHANCE for residents to improve their gardens and local environment was on offer in two tree giveaway events held by Bath & North East Somerset Council.
The authority handed out hundreds of young trees from its depot in Radstock as part of its commitment to tackling the effects of the climate and ecological emergencies.
B&NES residents were able to choose up to three trees per household from a range of eight, mostly native species including birch, alders, snake bark maple and mountain ash.
The scheme is aimed at extending valuable tree cover in hardto-reach areas by providing species of limited size, that are characteristic of the suburban environment with the majority shown to be beneficial to air quality.
It is hoped the scheme will also benefit the wider aims of the Forest of Avon trees and woodland project stretching from Bristol to Bath and sandwiched by the Mendip Hills and Cotswolds AONBS.
Councillor David Wood, B&NES cabinet member for Climate Emergency and Neighbourhood Services, said: “Trees are so important in improving air quality and helping to combat the climate emergency, which is why we’ve committed to planting 100,000 trees in B&NES by May 2023. Every tree really does count as part of our collective efforts to improve our environment.”
Secrets of the stones
Doug and Chris with the owners of a "stoned" home, Rowland and Christine Barter
THEteam behind GeoWeek, the annual celebration of Mendip’s geology held each spring, have decided to continue “stoning houses” in Wells and Mendip villages.
Chris King and Doug Robinson will visit stone-built homes by arrangement to “tell the story of the stones” to the owners and award them a Stoned certificate. Many of the local buildings have stones from four different geological periods, telling 200 million years of Earth’s history.
In one block of stone, they were excited to find ancient fossilised burrows during a recent “stoning”. The shrimp-like animal had a U-shaped burrow, like the burrows of lugworms you can find in Severn Estuary sands and muds today.
It pulled food and sand down one burrow and excreted sand from the other. They could see the curved lines above the main burrow in both the burrows, showing how the animal had moved down when the sediment above was eroded.
If you would like your stone-built home to be “stoned” too, free of charge, get in touch. See page 74. A GENEROUSdonation from Nailsea Lions Club has enabled a notice board to be installed at a popular viewpoint at Backwell to help visitors identify some of the distant landmarks.
The board at the top of Badgers Wood has been put up by volunteers from Backwell Environment Trust. From there, on a clear day you can see for nearly 40 miles over the Bristol Channel and the Welsh hills beyond.
Flat Holm, Steep Holm and the Principality Stadium in Cardiff are among the landmarks which can be spotted.
President of the Lions, Pam Hunt, said: “The Lions are delighted to have been able to help the trust with this project, and I am sure the new board will be much appreciated by the many visitors to this beautiful spot.”
Acting chairman of the trust, Peter Speight, thanked the Lions for their generosity and said the new board, along with existing boards which explain the history and ecology of the wood, would greatly add to the enjoyment of visitors.
The trust was founded over 15 years ago and manages two woodland reserves totalling 22 acres on the hillside above Backwell village. The reserves are popular with local walkers and have been much appreciated during lockdown.
BET is supported by more than 200 members and has an active group of over 40 volunteers who help with woodland and grassland management.
Details: chris@earthlearningidea.com
School’s message in a bottle
A BEAUTIFULrainbow has appeared on the fence of Bishop Sutton Primary School, made out of plastic bottles to mark Earth Day.
The Federation of Bishop Sutton and Stanton Drew primary schools received a grant of £350 from the Arts Society Mendip to buy materials.
Each child had to make a flower out of recycled bottles and paint them, before they were finally assembled.
Class teacher, Katie Cotton, said: “We decided to make the bottle flowers in to a rainbow – considering the importance of the symbol during the current Covid situation.”
The two schools made over 224 flowers between them. One of the pupils, Sophie, said: “It took us about three weeks. Every pupil had to make one flower each and each class had a different colour. Ours was blue.”
Badgers Wood viewpoint
Pam Hunt and Peter Speight
The benefits of locally grown food
Stand on top of the Mendips with only a herd of Exmoor ponies and songbirds for company and you don’t have to look far to appreciate the fantastic area we live in and what food is produced locally. Look towards Blagdon and you see Yeo Valley’s yoghurt With NICK GREEN dairy using milk produced by their herd of organic Friesians. Many Mendip farmers produce some of the available in its farm shop. best beef and lamb all grazed on traditional pasture. Some raise as well as these, there are lots of other Mendip farmers free range chicken, duck and turkeys on the same basis. Look supplying their products for processing and others doing the same towards Bristol and you can see the Parfitt’s Graylands Farm at but for sale direct to the public. through the course of the Covid dundry which is the home to their herd of Guernsey cows and pandemic many consumers have had time to consider where their Chew Moos ice cream. food comes from and what goes into producing it. down in the Wrington Vale, Lye Cross Farm produces as a consequence, many of our local food producing businesses farmhouse cheddar cheese using milk from farms across the have managed to develop new markets with local customers Mendips and surrounding area. Look a little further afield and benefitting. It doesn’t stop there. Without the need to transport thatchers orchards stand proud ready to have their apples food to distribution hubs only for it to be returned a few days later, harvested in the autumn and turned into cider. food miles are reduced and less traffic is on the road.
Move back towards Butcombe and we have the prize winning next time you have a walk across the Mendips it’s worth vineyards of Sutton Ridge and aldwick Court Farm. Further east stopping and looking around. You don’t have to look far to see along the Mendips is Farrington Farm which grows a great range farms producing food to satisfy everyone’s palette. We live in an of organic vegetables and has these and other local produce area of outstanding natural beauty that is our larder as well.
Nick Green is Farms Director for Alvis Bros Ltd based at Lye Cross Farm. He is responsible for the farming and estate business and is passionate about British food and farming. As well as the business, he is involved with a number of local and national farming charities.
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