Brightwell cum Sotwell (Local Environment Group)

Brightwell cum Sotwell Environment Group was established in 1995 in response to the call in AGENDA 21 to act locally. A programme was devised to involve all age groups in a wide range of activities concerned with the environment  of the Parish, from primary school children to the retired . This programme  included: awareness raising, training, the development of practical skills, monitoring and recording. Hedgelaying, coppicing, surveying hedgerows and  water courses, garden bird recording and farmland bird recording were included together with a survey of attitudes of villagers to the environment. Traffic counting on the A4130 was also carried out and the  results of these activities were published in the Parish Conservation Plan  in 1998. The programme also included lectures by outside speakers and
visits to sites of environmental interest.

Over the last ten years many of these activities have been continued and added to, particularly through projects for the management of St James Churchyard, the Millennium Wood and the Wellsprings. A thermal imaging survey of 60 dwellings in the village, the school, the pub and the village hall was undertaken in the winter of 2008 and followed up in January 2009. A survey of apple trees is being undertaken in 2009. The Group has interests in the possibility of a low head hydropower projects on the Thames, especially at Benson Weir which is partly in the parish of Brightwell cum Sotwell.

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Registered charity number: 1131540. © 2008-2010