Somerford Keynes - Platinum Jubilee Lisa
Villagers enjoyed a wonderful weekend, celebrating the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee with a variety of activities. Thank you to all who helped with the organisation and set-up – and also to those who took part!
We had a great turn out and collected litter from around the village in hedges and verges. Our volunteers did a fantastic job and even managed to find 2 tyres in a hedgerow !! Thanks to everyone who made the morning a success.
Thank you to all those who came along and helped.
Last weekend a group of volunteers carried out the first maintenance at the village lake of 2021. Works included cutting back new shoots from areas where trees were cleared last year, removing tree roots that presented a trip hazard on the path and clearing overhanging brambles.
There will be another volunteer morning in the next few weeks to light the annual bonfire and to install the water level gauge near the pond dipping platform, so look out for the date and come along and help!
The Parish Council recently heard of the Cotswold Lakes Trust’s plans to be more of a presence at Neigh Bridge Country Park this summer. Here are the slides describing these plans. Click on the link to view the pdf
THE FINAL STEP
The journey to formal approval for the Somerford Keynes and Shorncote Neighbourhood Development Plan (NDP) is almost complete. The final step is for the community to vote in the upcoming referendum. So it’s time to update you on how we finally got to this point and what you need to do.
The NDP is the only way in which local community views can directly inform new planning policies. Is that important? It would certainly appear so, because the NDP is playing an important part in a planning application on which local opinion is being expressed very strongly.
THE STORY SO FAR
The last NDP News reported that the NDP had been submitted to Cotswold District Council, our local planning authority, whose endorsement is needed for it to progress. A further public consultation followed and the NDP was sent to an Independent Examiner for comment. This consultation period ended on 24 January 2020 and that’s the last you may have heard of the NDP.
There are 3 new dates added onto the Village History Group’s Timeline
AD1773 18th Century Map
AD1783 Tythes
AD 1880s Thatched Cottages
Dear all,
During this last year we have enjoyed the book exchange that was set up in the church porch. This has been used and enjoyed by many people during the pandemic, which is fantastic. Now, with the approach of Easter ,we would like to clear the porch and have space for the Easter garden to be laid out by the children.
If anyone would like to take any of the books from the porch please do go ahead. We plan to leave everything in place until March 15th and then clear everything away to set up the Easter Garden.
David Crofts and Sussanne Lock
Church wardens
The Village History Group’s Timeline on this Website now has 13 entries
including ‘The End Of The Ice Age’
‘The Founding Of the Saxon Church’
‘The Opening of the new Village Hall’
More entries coming later!….. If anyone wants to add more events in our village history
Contact Judy Monger or David Miles
You may notice that our website has changed.
The address is the same, but we have built a new, redesign site.
Peter Watkins, who built and ran the original website as decided to retire. A big thank-you for all Peter’s work over the years.
Jon Lunn and Mike McKeown have kindly agreed to take over the site and have built a new site with more features and content and reduced hosting costs. Some of the benefits of the new site include:
The History Group has already created a nice new village timeline.
If you would like to post content please contact either Jon Lunn or Mike McKeown. We are open to adding additional groups and can create pages and blogs when needed.
Please note that public information, such as Parish Council minutes, continue to be available on the new site. The only personal information the site stores is contacts for groups and societies, and any incidental mentions, such as in meeting minutes. The site does not store general parish resident details.
A moth trap was set up in a garden at the end of Mill Lane that looks over lake 99 at the beginning of August 2020. We waited for a warm, calm and overcast night when traps work best. Moth traps are completely harmless to moths. They involve using a very bright light to attract moths which then fall into the trap. They then find refuge from the light in cardboard egg boxes which have been placed into the trap. The moths stay here until released the next day.
The following morning, we approached the moth trap carefully, as quite a few moths had taken shelter in the grass. We saw many bright yellow Brimstones (who live on hawthorn) and two species of Thorns , the Dusky Thorn (whose food plan is Ash and Privet) and the beautiful Canary Shouldered Thorn (below) (which lives on Birch , Alder, Elm and Goat Willows). We released these into the nearby hedgerow, before moving onto the trap itself.
The trap contained a huge variety of moth species. 28 different species were identified in total and over 90 moths were found. The largest was the Poplar Hawkmoth, pictured below. A personal favourite was the Gold Spangle which is now rarer in Gloucestershire, whose golden patches shined brightly in the sunlight. It was wonderful to uncover some of the rich diversity of wildlife associated with the village lake after the sun goes down. Moths form an important part of the ecosystem, being a key food source for bats, so it was great to see such diversity.
Canary Shouldered Thorn
Poplar Hawkmoth
Golden Spangle
Swallow Prominent – lives on Willows, Poplars & Aspen
White Satin – lives on Willows, Poplars and Aspen
Brindled Green – Oak, Hazel, Hawthorn
Iron Prominent – Lives on Birch, Alder, Hazel
Poplar Grey – Poplars, Aspen, occasionally Willows
Author: James Tipping – local conservationist who lives in Ashton Keynes
With Nick Cartwright