Banter 125: 24Jun26 Effective Actions against Climate Change

carbon reduction strategies, soil carbon storage, reduced mowing frequency, scrub, managing gorse, planting strategies, nature recovery, community engagement with climate-related strategies

Video Timeline:

00:00 - 29:52 Presentation (with feedback) 29:52 - 53:44(end) Q & A

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Presentation - Effective Actions against Climate Change:

Please note that you are welcome to download this file: click on the Book icon (second from right on bottom line), and click on 'Download a Copy'. It should go to your Downloads folder. There is a markdown copy listed at the bottom of the page

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Meeting Summary for Effective Actions against Climate Change

Jun 24, 2026 11:54 AM London ID: 834 5460 8536

Quick recap

Graham presented a climate action presentation focused on effective carbon reduction strategies, emphasizing that while many familiar actions like tree planting are important, some lesser-known approaches like soil carbon storage and reduced mowing frequency can have greater impact. The discussion revealed significant practical challenges, with Emma sharing details about managing 120 acres of common land in North Hampshire that requires £20,000 annual management to prevent scrub from taking over, and Jane describing a local example of valuable scrub habitat that residents want to destroy. Participants discussed specific challenges including tree selection for current climate conditions, the difficulty of managing gorse and other vegetation, and the importance of educating both residents and farmers about effective climate-friendly practices. The conversation also covered how parish and town councils can influence climate action through neighbourhood plans, retrofitting requirements, and encouraging community engagement with environmental initiatives.

Next steps

Emma

• Add to the chat the definition and description of "scrub" as it relates to their commons and SSSI management.

Garry

• Post in the chat the recommendation about white beam trees as a successful species for local climate conditions.

Graham

• Look up and provide a clear definition of "scrub" for Tristram and the group.

• Investigate and report back on how climate change mitigation can be effectively incorporated into neighbourhood plans, in response to David's question.

Penny

• Add the Weymouth environmental targets document (or relevant link/reference) to the chat for others to review as an example for neighbourhood plans and soil standards.

Collaboration

• All relevant parish/town councils and community groups: Consider engaging local expert groups (e.g., Wildlife Trusts, Natural England) for site-specific advice on land management and soil health, as suggested by Emma and Jane.

• All relevant parish/town councils and community groups: Review and update messaging/education for residents about the value of "untidy" or wild land for carbon storage and biodiversity, incorporating local examples and management needs.

• All relevant parish/town councils and community groups: Where appropriate, encourage and support residents in adopting wildlife-friendly gardening practices (e.g., no-dig, composting, native planting) as highlighted by Jane and Penny.

• All relevant parish/town councils and community groups: Review and, where possible, adapt management of allotments to support soil carbon retention and biodiversity, referencing examples such as Charles Dowding's no-dig approach (Penny).

• All relevant parish/town councils and community groups: Consider referencing the Great Collaboration website and its resources for local climate action commitments and reporting, as suggested by Graham.

Summary

Climate Action Impact Strategies

Graham presented on climate action strategies, focusing on the impact principle where efforts should prioritize actions with the largest environmental impact rather than those with high public visibility. He discussed a climate impact pyramid covering individual actions, parish council efforts, community organizations, and nature recovery initiatives. The presentation highlighted surprising findings about soil carbon storage being the biggest carbon container, with reduced mowing and scrub habitats being more effective than tree planting for carbon sequestration in the short term.

Scrub Land Management Discussion

The group discussed the definition and management of scrub land, with Jane sharing her experience of a natural area near Lydney that contains wildlife including orchids but needs management to balance wildlife preservation with human access. Graham emphasized the educational role of parish councils in helping people understand that untidy land can be beneficial for carbon storage and wildlife. The discussion included practical considerations about tree planting, with Garry recommending whitebeam as a successful local tree species, while Emma noted that even managed common land requires significant investment and that whitebeams can pose safety concerns due to their tendency to drop large branches.

Heathland Management and Conservation Practices

The group discussed managing scrub and heathland, with Emma explaining that their common land consists of emergent silver birch and gorse that requires significant management including cutting and burning several acres of gorse annually to maintain wildlife corridors and fire breaks. Emma described their volunteer working party system involving 25 volunteers that saved approximately £23,000 worth of work through chainsaw training and similar skills. The discussion covered carbon storage practices, with Graham emphasizing the importance of preserving existing habitats rather than replacing them, and Emma explaining their management constraints including legislation requiring removal of vegetation from nutrient-poor heathland and coordination with Natural England for a 10-year management plan.

Gorse Disposal and Carbon Solutions

The group discussed challenges with gorse disposal in Hants, where residents have complained about smoke from burning. Emma explained that while hand-cutting and burning produces less smoke than mechanical methods, transportation of the gorse to processing equipment remains difficult due to the 3-acre area requiring significant manpower. Graham presented information about modern timber construction techniques, including tall wooden buildings in Trondheim, Norway, and emphasized the importance of protecting mature habitats and restoring wetlands for carbon capture. The conversation ended with a reminder about available carbon reduction activities listed on the Great Collaboration website.

Riverbank Restoration Strategies Discussion

Frank discussed additional planting strategies including willow and alder for riverbank restoration and native irises for developers' SUDS systems. He highlighted challenges with council wildflower meadows requiring cut and collect methods and the need to educate the public about realistic wildflower areas. Frank also mentioned successful farmer initiatives including mixed livestock grazing and beaver introduction, while noting that farmers implementing sustainable practices face opposition from traditional farmers.

Farmer Education on Carbon Sequestration

Frank shared an example of successfully preventing a farmer from planting trees by demonstrating the value of fungi crops in carbon sequestration, highlighting that while trees are beneficial, they're not the only way to support biodiversity. Graham emphasized the importance of education in changing farmer perspectives, while Sue discussed challenges in consistent messaging about native planting and soil care, noting progress in shifting from no-mow to slow-mow approaches. The discussion concluded with Sue asking how councils can effectively communicate soil health information to residents.

Soil Quality and Biodiversity Initiatives

The group discussed soil quality and biodiversity initiatives. Emma suggested consulting local experts like Wildlife Trusts or Natural England for advice on managing land, while Jane mentioned having already sought advice. Sue shared that their town council purchased biodiversity data for £80, though noted the SSSIs haven't been inspected in 20 years and the data is outdated. David discussed challenges for an urban parish with no land, highlighting the importance of retrofitting social housing and encouraging solar panels and heat pumps, while also mentioning their nature park and local group Nature in the Lees.

Neighbourhood Climate Initiatives Discussion

The group discussed how small-scale neighbourhood initiatives could help mitigate climate change. Jane suggested encouraging individual households to create wildlife-friendly gardens using no-dig methods and composting, which could have a significant impact across England if widely adopted. Andrew then provided guidance on neighborhood plans, emphasizing the importance of identifying sufficient building areas to leverage control over development.

Neighbourhood Planning and Environmental Policies

The group discussed neighbourhood planning and environmental policies, with Andrew suggesting that an environment manual could help address specific matters that cannot be directly included in a plan. Frank emphasized the importance of reaching out to wealthier individuals who can afford to make environmental changes, rather than focusing only on those struggling with fuel poverty. Penny shared insights about Weymouth's neighborhood plan experience and mentioned an upcoming scrutiny of allotments, expressing interest in learning from other parish approaches to allotment management. The conversation ended with brief discussions about red kites in the area and technical issues with the call.

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Chat:

00:31:22 Penny Quilter: Need Rights to Roam like Scotland 00:33:08 David Newman: How about managing land through a neigbhourhood plan? 00:35:39 Penny Quilter: Whitebeams doing well 00:36:10 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Trees in Corsham - we are currently finding that Whitebeams in particular are coping particularly well with the current conditions. 00:38:06 Penny Quilter: Do goats eat Gorse - being used to clear allotments in some places 00:38:41 Emma Stephens: we have 16 dexter cattle who eat young gorse. I suspevt goats would eat it bu tthey probably eat a lot more as well. 00:38:59 Andrew Clegg, Martock, Somerset: Does anyone know of an effective ways of controlling thistles in wilderness areas? RHS says chop them every mid-July. Big job 00:39:28 Jane Carr: Reacted to "we have 16 dexter ca..." with 😊 00:43:15 Andrew Clegg, Martock, Somerset: We are supporting a good variety of rare bees. All our clippings (usually once a year but sometimes more is left to decay in one or two corners - very good heaps for reptiles and hedgehoogs etc but we stor it dry and is left fairly open by blackthorn clippings etc 00:46:09 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: At our nature area we created a dead hedge in one corner where we put the wildflower meadow grass cuttings. All collected by hand by volunteers. 00:46:21 Jane Carr: Reacted to "We are supporting a ..." with 👍 00:48:09 David Newman: It is better to burn wood than oil or gas. Hence the way few households in Kenya need gas or fuel oil for cooking, using more efficient stoves. 00:55:07 Andrew Clegg, Martock, Somerset: Reacted to "At our nature area w..." with 👍

00:56:39 Frank Deas, Killearn: https://www.repollinate.org.uk/beds-for-bees/ this is a Scottish organisation but similar may exist down south and works for areas like memorial gardens where wilderness would never be acceptable

01:00:11 Jane Carr: Reacted to "https://www.repollin..." with 💚 01:00:35 Frank Deas, Killearn: To paraphrase the lemon aphorism "If your scrub gives you brambles make bramble jelly" better still twin your scrub with a community orchard and make apple and bramble jelly. 01:02:01 Jane Carr: Replying to "To paraphrase the le..."

Sadly, the patch I'm talking about is on an old tip so I wouldn't want to eat anything from it ..... :)

01:02:09 Frank Deas, Killearn: Community thermal imaging schemes can be quite small/local and good for motivating people to become involved - starting with draught busters but right up to full scale retrofit 01:03:28 David Newman: A garden hedge competition with prizes? 01:05:30 Graham Stoddart-Stones: No dig gardening by Charles Dowding 01:06:13 Jane Carr: Reacted to "Community thermal im..." with 💚 01:06:18 Jane Carr: Reacted to "A garden hedge compe..." with 💚 01:06:24 Jane Carr: Reacted to "No dig gardening by ..." with 💚

01:07:56 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Corsham local plan with environment section (3) sppnp-corsham-neighbourhood-plan-made.pdf

01:08:04 Cllr Stuart Withington Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: Thanks everyone but I must dash 01:08:33 Jane Carr: Reacted to "Corsham local plan w..." with 👍

01:09:45 Frank Deas, Killearn: a couple of really good local farms that we try and champion up here. worth finding who your local farm role models are - https://www.scotlandbigpicture.com/nrn-partners/argaty-red-kites? 01:09:49 Frank Deas, Killearn: https://www.scotlandbigpicture.com/nrn-partners/little-drumquharn-farm 01:11:14 Andrew Clegg, Martock, Somerset: An environment manual for the village is a great help. You can put very specific matters in it which cant go into a plan - but which gives developers and planning officers guidance about whet the plan actually means 01:11:39 Jane Carr: Reacted to "An environment manua..." with 💚

01:12:35 Penny Quilter: Weymouth Neighbourhood plan

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Audiotranscript:

135 00:19:18.890 --> 00:19:24.289 Graham Stoddart-Stones: What I'm going to try and show today is that I think most people are on track for

136 00:19:24.750 --> 00:19:38.589 Graham Stoddart-Stones: doing the best that they can for climate action, climate change. But I think there are some actions which are less well known about than others, even though they're much more effective. So we're going to discuss today

137 00:19:38.950 --> 00:19:47.209 Graham Stoddart-Stones: what we can do about that. So I'm going to go over the standards, just to make sure that everyone sees them as the standard actions to be taken.

138 00:19:47.460 --> 00:19:50.230 Graham Stoddart-Stones: And hopefully this is a useful list, if nothing else.

139 00:19:50.820 --> 00:19:52.539 Graham Stoddart-Stones: And then…

140 00:19:52.850 --> 00:20:06.359 Graham Stoddart-Stones: we'll go and talk about what are the most effective actions, where we're going to focus on the impact, not the sort of public visibility that is much more appealing to people. So, lots of people like planting trees, but planting trees is not necessarily

141 00:20:06.500 --> 00:20:09.469 Graham Stoddart-Stones: The most effective way of combating climate change.

142 00:20:09.720 --> 00:20:11.640 Graham Stoddart-Stones: At least not for another 100 years.

143 00:20:12.690 --> 00:20:24.469 Graham Stoddart-Stones: So, we're going to follow what's known as the impact principle. I think what is the largest impact of what we're doing? Because a few actions simply produce most of the emission reductions that we can get around.

144 00:20:25.360 --> 00:20:27.400 Graham Stoddart-Stones: So, the…

145 00:20:28.180 --> 00:20:39.960 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Following pictures are designed along this pyramid design, where the top of the pyramid, or the inverted pyramid, is where you want to spend the most amount of effort and time.

146 00:20:40.130 --> 00:20:52.379 Graham Stoddart-Stones: in achieving things, and I don't think there are any great surprises here. The middle of the pyramid will show that medium actions, and the bottom bit is the bit that don't really deliver as much as one could be doing.

147 00:20:53.520 --> 00:21:00.790 Graham Stoddart-Stones: So, we're going to talk about individuals, parishion Town Councils, community organisations, and nature recovery.

148 00:21:01.430 --> 00:21:02.670 Graham Stoddart-Stones: And the…

149 00:21:02.820 --> 00:21:13.029 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Climate impact pyramid. I'm sorry about the lack of color on the left-hand side, I just didn't have the time to divide the pyramid into three sections, but the high-impact actions

150 00:21:14.930 --> 00:21:21.720 Graham Stoddart-Stones: all pretty well known, and we're talking about individuals here, so… fight… Much less often.

151 00:21:22.090 --> 00:21:29.589 Graham Stoddart-Stones: In-store heat pumps and anything like solar energy is, much to my surprise, considered to be a medium impact.

152 00:21:29.860 --> 00:21:33.059 Graham Stoddart-Stones: But insulation is the greatest impact.

153 00:21:33.180 --> 00:21:37.329 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Obviously, reducing your car use unless you have an electric vehicle.

154 00:21:37.450 --> 00:21:45.180 Graham Stoddart-Stones: And, as everyone knows who's seen the People's Emergency Briefing, you're going to have to switch to a plant-rich diet.

155 00:21:45.480 --> 00:21:47.199 Graham Stoddart-Stones: If we're all going to survive.

156 00:21:47.400 --> 00:21:53.800 Graham Stoddart-Stones: So, fewer cows for eating, Greens.

157 00:21:54.720 --> 00:21:56.660 Graham Stoddart-Stones: No surprises there, really.

158 00:21:57.070 --> 00:22:11.510 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Parish councils, I didn't come up with a pyramid for them, because clearly it's felt that the major influence of parish councils is to influence people's thinking, to bring together people, show people what can be done.

159 00:22:11.660 --> 00:22:19.189 Graham Stoddart-Stones: And then help manage the local land that belongs to the parish, or its community land, or whatever.

160 00:22:19.580 --> 00:22:28.780 Graham Stoddart-Stones: But, a lot of the actions you're going to be seeing are put together better by community organizations, who are often part of

161 00:22:29.280 --> 00:22:31.760 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Linked with parish councils.

162 00:22:32.420 --> 00:22:37.530 Graham Stoddart-Stones: But they're the ones who seem to get the volunteers moving more effectively.

163 00:22:37.880 --> 00:22:40.100 Graham Stoddart-Stones: And the big impact for them is

164 00:22:40.300 --> 00:22:53.090 Graham Stoddart-Stones: getting people to change their social norms. So, you know, just the habit of changing from reducing their car use to increasing the number of public transport trips they take, getting people involved.

165 00:22:53.740 --> 00:22:55.339 Graham Stoddart-Stones: All those sorts of things.

166 00:22:55.710 --> 00:23:01.339 Graham Stoddart-Stones: really where… The community organisations can really play a part.

167 00:23:04.140 --> 00:23:20.990 Graham Stoddart-Stones: And then, having gone through those three types of individuals, parish councils, and community organisations, we're going to spend a lot of time talking about the nature recovery period, or pyramid, I'm sorry, because this is where I found, for me, the highest number of surprises.

168 00:23:22.540 --> 00:23:37.549 Graham Stoddart-Stones: So, we're all involved, I'm sure, or we know about rewilding and wetlands and ponds. What I hadn't realized, which I'll get to in a second, is that the biggest container of carbon around is the soil itself.

169 00:23:39.670 --> 00:23:50.410 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Reduced mowing has the impact on not only reducing our costs and putting much less toxic fumes from tractors and motor mowers.

170 00:23:50.840 --> 00:23:58.660 Graham Stoddart-Stones: But you also get a double whammy of, increasing the the wilding.

171 00:23:59.720 --> 00:24:00.560 Graham Stoddart-Stones: So…

172 00:24:01.850 --> 00:24:09.919 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Hedges and wildflowers and habitat connectivity. I think we all know about making, sort of, holes in your fence for hedgehogs.

173 00:24:10.540 --> 00:24:13.130 Graham Stoddart-Stones: And there's a big…

174 00:24:13.540 --> 00:24:21.159 Graham Stoddart-Stones: government-funded program on at the moment to encourage more hedgerows to be increased. So if any of you are farm owners or landowners.

175 00:24:21.530 --> 00:24:25.229 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Then you can get paid to increase your hedgerows.

176 00:24:27.210 --> 00:24:37.759 Graham Stoddart-Stones: And, as we're all probably are aware, the fancy part of gardening, the ornamental planting and the beautiful formal lawns, don't have a very large impact upon climate.

177 00:24:39.810 --> 00:24:47.360 Graham Stoddart-Stones: So… It's this statement that really bothered or surprised me. It's the soil itself

178 00:24:47.620 --> 00:24:50.640 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Beneath the plants that is storing the carbon.

179 00:24:51.320 --> 00:24:57.150 Graham Stoddart-Stones: And, as a general rule, a mature oak can contain several tons of carbon, but

180 00:24:57.680 --> 00:25:09.930 Graham Stoddart-Stones: a meadow, or wetland, or a scrub habitat can store even more over time, and often does so more reliably. So I'm sorry to just be reading this out, but I thought it was a point worth mentioning.

181 00:25:12.320 --> 00:25:21.409 Graham Stoddart-Stones: So then you come on to the question of, if you're going to be following the wilding or the tree planting, what are you going to do? What are the best ones?

182 00:25:21.950 --> 00:25:36.200 Graham Stoddart-Stones: So, I'm not going to read them all out, I'll just leave them here, and of course, this presentation will be put up on the knowledge base for anybody who wants to download it, or to make a note of these particular species.

183 00:25:37.060 --> 00:25:43.249 Graham Stoddart-Stones: The second point was the one that, again, surprised me, that many ecologists now regard scrub.

184 00:25:43.330 --> 00:25:57.659 Graham Stoddart-Stones: It's one of our most undervalued habitats, because these are largely hedgerows and places do a lot about building soil carbon, supporting the insects and the birds, resilient to storms, which sounds very useful.

185 00:25:58.210 --> 00:26:02.890 Graham Stoddart-Stones: And can dip… develop naturally.

186 00:26:03.670 --> 00:26:04.609 Graham Stoddart-Stones: You bet.

187 00:26:05.410 --> 00:26:12.810 Graham Stoddart-Stones: I thought the bottom line was also a surprise to me, that allowing scrub succession could be more effective than cutting rows of trees.

188 00:26:12.970 --> 00:26:30.290 Graham Stoddart-Stones: And of course, it's a lot quicker, you know, your scrubs are going to get going straight away, and the plants will be growing quickly, whereas the trees are going to take 100 years or so before they become really effective at having locked up carbon. I mean, they've obviously been locking up carbon during that time.

189 00:26:31.010 --> 00:26:35.270 Graham Stoddart-Stones: But, I think Tristam has a feeling about the first 20 years.

190 00:26:35.460 --> 00:26:40.909 Graham Stoddart-Stones: When you're not doing as much as they will be doing during the next 20 or 40 years.

191 00:26:42.900 --> 00:26:45.540 tristram cary: And what's, what's the definition of scrub?

192 00:26:45.540 --> 00:26:46.080 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Broke.

193 00:26:48.630 --> 00:26:55.300 Graham Stoddart-Stones: That's a great question. It's, it's like one of those things, you know it when you see it, don't you? But,

194 00:26:56.650 --> 00:26:59.679 Graham Stoddart-Stones: I should think Heathland? Would that work?

195 00:27:00.390 --> 00:27:08.770 Graham Stoddart-Stones: It's a good question. I'll look it up for you, Tristan, because I don't actually… haven't thought about doing that definition.

196 00:27:08.770 --> 00:27:14.719 Andrew Clegg, Martock, Somerset: There is one very quick definition, Tristram. It's what everybody else wants to destroy.

197 00:27:17.030 --> 00:27:20.550 Andrew Clegg, Martock, Somerset: Really, it is. We have a real problem over this in the village.

198 00:27:20.830 --> 00:27:21.680 tristram cary: Good.

199 00:27:22.310 --> 00:27:30.499 Andrew Clegg, Martock, Somerset: I've even had a bit of scrub near my house, destroyed by the man who comes around and squirts weed killer over everything.

200 00:27:30.960 --> 00:27:31.770 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Ouch.

201 00:27:33.790 --> 00:27:34.810 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Dizzy.

202 00:27:36.620 --> 00:27:39.279 tristram cary: Jane… Graham, Jane wants to make a comment.

203 00:27:41.200 --> 00:27:42.280 Graham Stoddart-Stones: She wants to help.

204 00:27:42.670 --> 00:27:50.740 Jane Carr: I'm in Lidney, and if you go over the A48 south of Lydney, there's where the old Lydney dump used to be.

205 00:27:50.920 --> 00:28:00.639 Jane Carr: And that is a fine example of scrub. It's just… it's just absolutely been left, because it was the dump it stopped.

206 00:28:02.700 --> 00:28:12.109 Jane Carr: And now it's got… Short, shrubby trees, brambles underground, you know, low down, it's…

207 00:28:12.290 --> 00:28:21.340 Jane Carr: Areas of grass where the rabbits eat the grass, it's… Wonderful. It's absolutely wonderful.

208 00:28:22.130 --> 00:28:24.990 Jane Carr: And yes, and people want to destroy it.

209 00:28:26.280 --> 00:28:31.960 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Because it doesn't look good, because it doesn't feel good, or the rambles upset you?

210 00:28:32.450 --> 00:28:36.120 Jane Carr: Nothing upsets me, I think it's wonderful.

211 00:28:37.160 --> 00:28:46.010 Jane Carr: And there are, orchids in there, just orchids galore. I think one of the biggest troubles here is that, yes.

212 00:28:46.630 --> 00:28:58.880 Jane Carr: to… I love that area. I call it Teasel Park because it was one of the first few plants that grew were teasels, so it was just like there were teasel everywhere.

213 00:28:59.100 --> 00:29:09.330 Jane Carr: And I used to be on the, Lidney Town Council, and, I think it's because…

214 00:29:10.230 --> 00:29:27.100 Jane Carr: It could be used. There's this thing that says that here's this piece of land, we could use it for something. And so, there was a group of, cyclists wanted to go in and build one of these enormous,

215 00:29:27.280 --> 00:29:32.080 Jane Carr: Racing tracks up on… up on stilts, so that it's like a

216 00:29:32.520 --> 00:29:40.970 Jane Carr: You know, you know, going up and down and, and everything. But we, we managed, we managed to knock that on the head.

217 00:29:41.140 --> 00:29:44.749 Jane Carr: I think the trouble is, is that…

218 00:29:45.760 --> 00:29:53.579 Jane Carr: If it's… what we really need is we need something that's good for wildlife, but can also be good for human beings.

219 00:29:53.760 --> 00:30:06.920 Jane Carr: And in which case, some management is needed. So this area that used to have a lot of grassland, most of the grassland is now covered in brambles.

220 00:30:07.040 --> 00:30:11.900 Jane Carr: There's… there's Cornus, there's Hawthorne, there's…

221 00:30:12.230 --> 00:30:24.120 Jane Carr: So many trees coming, but unless we keep the brambles back slightly, unless we make some kind of path so that we can walk through it…

222 00:30:24.230 --> 00:30:31.680 Jane Carr: It's just going to be an impenetrable thing, which is wonderful for wildlife, but… It…

223 00:30:32.550 --> 00:30:36.570 Jane Carr: You know, one of the… One of the…

224 00:30:37.210 --> 00:30:51.309 Jane Carr: One of the things about land that we should be doing is it's not just for wildlife, it's also for our own mental, sanity to have a place where we can go that is wild, that's not manicured, that's…

225 00:30:51.430 --> 00:30:57.390 Jane Carr: green and… and… And we can see the wildlife.

226 00:30:57.780 --> 00:31:04.319 Jane Carr: So, I, it's, it's, it's… it's a bit of a… it's a bit of a conundrum, really.

227 00:31:05.480 --> 00:31:14.700 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Well, it's a wonderful contrast with, sort of, the stately homes, where you go and see everything manicured and beautiful and gorgeous, but not an animal to be seen.

228 00:31:14.700 --> 00:31:15.310 Jane Carr: Absolutely.

229 00:31:15.780 --> 00:31:16.460 Graham Stoddart-Stones: And then…

230 00:31:16.460 --> 00:31:17.020 Jane Carr: be it.

231 00:31:17.690 --> 00:31:18.410 Graham Stoddart-Stones: So I think…

232 00:31:18.410 --> 00:31:23.919 Andrew Clegg, Martock, Somerset: Well, what you need is a nightingale. We're trying to get a nightingale on ours, that will turn it.

233 00:31:24.960 --> 00:31:30.350 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Or it'll certainly be romantic, you know?

234 00:31:30.350 --> 00:31:34.539 Jane Carr: If you look at MEP and places like that, they're still managed.

235 00:31:34.770 --> 00:31:41.280 Jane Carr: they've still… they've put, I think one of the big things for NEP is the amount of,

236 00:31:43.370 --> 00:31:56.110 Jane Carr: big… yeah, I can't… sorry, I'm very tired, and I can't think straight, but big eating animals. So I think there's… there's… there's cows, or buffaloes, or longhorn cattle, or something, there's pigs on there, because they…

237 00:31:56.340 --> 00:32:04.580 Jane Carr: maintain the place without having to go in with a scrub cutter, or a lawnmower, or what have you. They…

238 00:32:05.250 --> 00:32:10.700 Jane Carr: It's just much more natural if you've got, big wildlife in there.

239 00:32:11.300 --> 00:32:15.530 Jane Carr: Doing it, but that will never happen anymore, sadly.

240 00:32:15.530 --> 00:32:28.989 Graham Stoddart-Stones: I think what you've been saying supported my statement that I thought the parish councils have the job of managing the land to the best of their ability, particularly if it's not particularly owned by anybody.

241 00:32:29.300 --> 00:32:33.969 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Or they can persuade whoever does own it that, actually, it's good to let it

242 00:32:34.160 --> 00:32:45.539 Graham Stoddart-Stones: follow some of the paths that we're laying down in this session. So, what I hope I've done is given people ideas of specific types of

243 00:32:45.640 --> 00:32:50.040 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Grassland and wildlife that really help

244 00:32:50.380 --> 00:32:54.870 Graham Stoddart-Stones: The soil do its job of storing carbon.

245 00:32:55.030 --> 00:33:07.630 Graham Stoddart-Stones: And I throw in the idea that we've recently had discussions about the job that worms do to help the land recover, and certainly where I am in the Isle of Wight, they are

246 00:33:07.810 --> 00:33:28.280 Graham Stoddart-Stones: going hell for leather with worm farms to increase what they consider to be very depleted land. It's been agricultural used for so many centuries that the land needs… the land itself, the ground itself, needs a bit of a boost, and they're hoping the worms are going to do that.

247 00:33:28.350 --> 00:33:31.639 Graham Stoddart-Stones: And in passing, I'm sure most people here have seen

248 00:33:32.020 --> 00:33:36.440 Graham Stoddart-Stones: 6 inches of soil, but if you haven't, it's a 90-minute

249 00:33:36.770 --> 00:33:52.320 Graham Stoddart-Stones: pastime of delight, it really is, to sort of see how important those first six inches are. And I also think that part of, or a major part of our job, and certainly I should have put on the parish council screen, is the education. The people

250 00:33:52.620 --> 00:33:58.230 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Can be led to recognize that Land is… looks…

251 00:33:58.490 --> 00:34:11.849 Graham Stoddart-Stones: By our definition of untidy and not perfect, and doesn't look good, then it could actually still be doing a lot more good than all the most beautifully trimmed lawns and rose bushes and so forth.

252 00:34:12.380 --> 00:34:15.500 Graham Stoddart-Stones: So, there's an educational aspect to all of this.

253 00:34:17.159 --> 00:34:18.440 Frank Deas, Killearn: Kevin, a couple of points, sorry.

254 00:34:18.449 --> 00:34:20.399 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Graham, can I just jump in?

255 00:34:20.589 --> 00:34:21.650 Graham Stoddart-Stones: He's good.

256 00:34:21.790 --> 00:34:28.479 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Yeah, so I just wanted to go back to your list of trees a second. I just wanted to kind of point out that…

257 00:34:28.650 --> 00:34:34.599 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: You know, we also need to consider what trees to plant today that are actually going to survive in this climate for the next 20 years.

258 00:34:34.870 --> 00:34:37.399 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: 20 years, let alone the next 100 years.

259 00:34:37.409 --> 00:34:38.799 Jane Carr: Yes, absolutely.

260 00:34:38.940 --> 00:34:40.889 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: And I would just say that…

261 00:34:41.150 --> 00:34:51.960 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: a very, very small sample, very local to where I am, that, you know, we've been planting oaks and hearth and that stuff, and they've been really struggling, but we found that white beams in particular.

262 00:34:52.199 --> 00:35:02.730 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: have been coping very, very well in our local area with these conditions. Surprisingly well compared to the other trees. So that was… that is something that I would recommend.

263 00:35:03.100 --> 00:35:05.030 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: At the moment, in terms of treatment.

264 00:35:05.030 --> 00:35:11.490 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Can I ask you if you… could you just put that comment into the chat, please? Because I'll pick it up from there.

265 00:35:12.290 --> 00:35:22.429 Emma Stephens: Can I add a comment to that as well, though? I just had a meeting yesterday regarding trees for some landscaping around a solar park development. We actually have 120 acres of common that we

266 00:35:22.630 --> 00:35:34.679 Emma Stephens: If you looked at it, you would say it was scrub, but actually, it's really heavily managed, and it has to be in order to stop the trees from taking over, so we'd probably spend £20,000 a year managing the land.

267 00:35:34.990 --> 00:35:39.839 Emma Stephens: But white beam, it looked at some white bean yesterday, and they are lovely trees.

268 00:35:39.990 --> 00:35:53.180 Emma Stephens: But they also drop branches quite easily, so you have to be a bit careful about where you put them, because if they're near footpaths or roads, they can become dangerous. We looked at one where some very large boughs have just fallen off of it.

269 00:35:53.860 --> 00:35:56.219 Emma Stephens: So that is another consideration.

270 00:35:56.220 --> 00:35:58.860 Graham Stoddart-Stones: That's really useful, thank you very much.

271 00:35:59.020 --> 00:36:06.939 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Good, but I'll add these comments in, as… Right, where were we with?

272 00:36:07.060 --> 00:36:07.599 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Oh my god.

273 00:36:07.600 --> 00:36:13.510 Emma Stephens: I actually looked up what scrub is, because, you know, you're right, you know what it looks like, and in fact, if you looked at our comment, that's what you say it was scrub.

274 00:36:13.880 --> 00:36:27.859 Emma Stephens: But the definition says it refers to a type of terrain or ecosystem defined by dry, open land primarily covered with low-growing, woody vegetation, such as shrubs, bushes, stunted trees, and grasses. And that is what our commons and SSSI,

275 00:36:28.540 --> 00:36:29.200 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Right?

276 00:36:29.200 --> 00:36:46.170 Emma Stephens: It's mostly, emergent silver birch and gorse, a lot of heather, and lots of other plants as well. Obviously, much rarer plants in the marshy areas and things, but a lot of these plants on this list. But if you look at it, primarily what you see are little clumps of,

277 00:36:46.530 --> 00:37:00.690 Emma Stephens: young silver birch trees and a lot of gorse. But the gorse takes such a lot of management, we have to, every year, we're cutting and burning acres, several acres of gorse, in order to maintain

278 00:37:00.940 --> 00:37:08.399 Emma Stephens: The differentiation, because if you just need the gauze to grow, it'll just take over, and then there's no space for wildlife at all, so…

279 00:37:08.580 --> 00:37:16.900 Emma Stephens: In order to leave corridors between the gorse and, also to create fire breaks, we have to really manage that and cut it quite heavily.

280 00:37:17.350 --> 00:37:20.810 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Wow, you can see where your costs are coming from. Yes.

281 00:37:20.810 --> 00:37:24.199 Emma Stephens: Yeah, well, it is. Contractor costs are… we have,

282 00:37:24.340 --> 00:37:32.409 Emma Stephens: really effective working party system, where in the winter, between October and March, at least once a month, we have about 25 volunteers.

283 00:37:32.560 --> 00:37:38.709 Emma Stephens: Who are… some of them are chainsaw trained, and some of them work for… in similar jobs, so they come and…

284 00:37:38.910 --> 00:37:44.099 Emma Stephens: They have probably… we calculated last year, they saved us about £23,000

285 00:37:44.220 --> 00:37:47.549 Emma Stephens: Worth of work by, volunteers doing the work.

286 00:37:48.010 --> 00:37:48.770 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Wow.

287 00:37:48.930 --> 00:37:50.120 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Fantastic.

288 00:37:50.940 --> 00:37:57.660 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Moving on then, ponds appear to be particularly effective at,

289 00:37:58.440 --> 00:38:05.259 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Carbon storage, and the plants, of course, that they, support around their borders.

290 00:38:05.510 --> 00:38:21.059 Graham Stoddart-Stones: So, I know we were building a nature reserve in my old village in Somerset, and they insisted that we have at least two pods up there, one in each of opposite corners, just because they do so much good.

291 00:38:21.420 --> 00:38:24.940 Graham Stoddart-Stones: So again, having included a plant list, I hope that's helpful.

292 00:38:25.990 --> 00:38:36.859 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Then, how do we stop the carbon that is trapped in the soil, or these plants, from going back to the atmosphere? Or stop it from going back to the atmosphere?

293 00:38:37.810 --> 00:38:38.820 Graham Stoddart-Stones: So…

294 00:38:39.860 --> 00:38:48.080 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Again, I've listed the actions here, but you need to leave the roots in the ground, minimize the digging, that should be good for the volunteers.

295 00:38:48.530 --> 00:38:55.520 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Use mulch and compost and allow leaf litter to remain, and we've already mentioned reducing the mowing frequency.

296 00:38:56.100 --> 00:39:01.100 Graham Stoddart-Stones: And the beauty is, provided it's not touched by any of the things that we've mentioned.

297 00:39:01.210 --> 00:39:05.720 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Above, then the soil carbon can remain for a very long time.

298 00:39:06.540 --> 00:39:15.310 Graham Stoddart-Stones: If you already have mature vegetation, then there's a lot of carbon, in a tree,

299 00:39:15.680 --> 00:39:29.490 Graham Stoddart-Stones: But, preserving the existing habitat usually beats replacing it. So if you've got your 120 acres, or whatever it was, of scrub, or moorland, or heath, whatever you wanted to call it, it sounds like

300 00:39:30.050 --> 00:39:36.010 Graham Stoddart-Stones: It's better to keep it a scrub than it is to start producing trees there, unless, of course, they become a renewable

301 00:39:36.300 --> 00:39:39.750 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Source of income in years to come.

302 00:39:39.750 --> 00:39:48.559 Emma Stephens: acid heathland, so we don't want mature trees, the trees are removed, but actually, we can't leave any organic matter on it either, because it's nutrient poor.

303 00:39:48.680 --> 00:39:57.159 Emma Stephens: So, because of the types of plant that grow there, anything… any vegetation we take off the common has to be removed from the common. We can't leave it there.

304 00:39:58.450 --> 00:39:59.689 Graham Stoddart-Stones: That's interesting.

305 00:39:59.910 --> 00:40:02.869 Graham Stoddart-Stones: So there's legislation about that, isn't there?

306 00:40:03.630 --> 00:40:10.449 Emma Stephens: It's all done in conjunction with Natural England, and we get a payment through from the Rural Payment Agency.

307 00:40:10.890 --> 00:40:16.659 Emma Stephens: So, natural England write a plan, a 10-year plan with us.

308 00:40:16.960 --> 00:40:21.220 Emma Stephens: About how we're going to manage the common, and then… We follow that.

309 00:40:22.110 --> 00:40:22.520 tristram cary: So.

310 00:40:22.520 --> 00:40:23.090 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Good.

311 00:40:23.090 --> 00:40:28.089 tristram cary: Sorry to interrupt, but can I just understand, when you remove stuff from the heathland, what happens to it?

312 00:40:28.840 --> 00:40:35.570 Emma Stephens: Most of the gauze that is removed, we contract contractors who cut by hand.

313 00:40:35.650 --> 00:40:51.209 Emma Stephens: And they burn it on site, so because they're cutting by hand and feeding the fire fairly, we have a fire burning license as well. We, they feed the fire fairly slowly doing that. The fire burns hotter, and more of it is vaporized, disappears.

314 00:40:51.270 --> 00:40:58.609 Emma Stephens: Anything else that's, like a grassland that's cut, we have to take the clippings elsewhere and put them somewhere else.

315 00:40:59.200 --> 00:41:02.780 tristram cary: And they get burnt in the end, and all that carbon's returning to the atmosphere, then?

316 00:41:02.780 --> 00:41:14.239 Emma Stephens: Well, no, they don't get burnt. We have an area on the side of a car park where… so we've got a playing field area, which is on the commons, so all the grass clippings from that go into a compost area on the side of a car park.

317 00:41:14.530 --> 00:41:28.390 Emma Stephens: So where possible, we would… the problem with the gorse is it's extremely hard to deal with, because it's so big and prickly. So actually… and actually getting, vehicles into the areas where you're removing it from is not always possible.

318 00:41:28.720 --> 00:41:36.490 Emma Stephens: So, it's extremely hard to remove that elsewhere, but even if you took it elsewhere, disposing of gorse is pretty difficult.

319 00:41:36.930 --> 00:41:39.690 Emma Stephens: Most of what we remove is gorse.

320 00:41:40.870 --> 00:41:51.530 Graham Stoddart-Stones: So, and how large is the compost area? I'm thinking that there are places around the world that are using their compost heaps as sources of heat for heating houses and so forth.

321 00:41:51.530 --> 00:41:53.589 Emma Stephens: Yeah, it's not that big.

322 00:41:53.590 --> 00:41:54.809 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Love me.

323 00:41:55.250 --> 00:42:03.479 Emma Stephens: How big is it? It's probably 15 foot long, I suppose, 20 foot long, and 6 feet wide.

324 00:42:03.930 --> 00:42:08.339 Emma Stephens: I'm not actually sure what they do with it when it's rotted down. Put it somewhere.

325 00:42:08.740 --> 00:42:10.689 Graham Stoddart-Stones: And very, very, very high.

326 00:42:11.570 --> 00:42:14.680 Emma Stephens: No, it's not very high, it's, like, the palate, really.

327 00:42:15.310 --> 00:42:16.800 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Oh, right. Okay.

328 00:42:17.260 --> 00:42:24.810 Emma Stephens: We only mow the playing field, so it's not, you know, a lot of the common that's being mowed. Most of the common is heather.

329 00:42:24.970 --> 00:42:30.630 Emma Stephens: And, they want to encourage that, so…

330 00:42:30.750 --> 00:42:35.050 Emma Stephens: That's just left. And then the areas of gorse are cut and burnt.

331 00:42:35.540 --> 00:42:45.180 Emma Stephens: And most of the rest of it… if we cut trees down, they're left on site for habitat, and because the carbon is retained for longer as they rot down slowly over time.

332 00:42:45.520 --> 00:42:51.429 Emma Stephens: So anything, like a tree that was cut down, either, if it's a lot tree, it'd be logged and piled up.

333 00:42:51.560 --> 00:42:56.279 Emma Stephens: Or they would just leave a whole tree lying on the ground as a habitat.

334 00:42:57.940 --> 00:42:59.610 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Interesting. Thank you.

335 00:43:00.720 --> 00:43:07.730 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Okay, so… my next slide has the first item of avoiding burning. Bad luck.

336 00:43:08.330 --> 00:43:17.550 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Routine scrub burning, not suggested, recommended, but I guess you're being very careful with that course.

337 00:43:19.660 --> 00:43:21.600 Graham Stoddart-Stones: can you hear that?

338 00:43:25.220 --> 00:43:29.010 Emma Stephens: It's a local farmer with his tractor, just trying to get past someone outside my house.

339 00:43:29.620 --> 00:43:30.360 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Right.

340 00:43:30.360 --> 00:43:36.719 Emma Stephens: I think the problem is that the disposal options are limited for gorse.

341 00:43:36.980 --> 00:43:38.160 Emma Stephens: And…

342 00:43:38.730 --> 00:43:43.349 Emma Stephens: We have had a lot of discussions this year, because there are residents who aren't happy about the smoke.

343 00:43:43.840 --> 00:43:44.260 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Yes.

344 00:43:45.300 --> 00:43:48.979 Emma Stephens: But, which is… poke that away.

345 00:43:50.730 --> 00:44:01.889 Emma Stephens: Because, because, because of the way they're asked to burn it. So, we had an incident last winter where a different contractor loaded the fire with his mechanical digger.

346 00:44:01.900 --> 00:44:14.490 Emma Stephens: And he put a lot of gorse all at once, which produced a huge amount of smoke, and that's actually really not a very good way of doing it. So, by burning it, cutting it by hand and burning it, they are more effective at, not creating smoke.

347 00:44:17.970 --> 00:44:19.290 Emma Stephens: Sorry about this.

348 00:44:23.130 --> 00:44:24.649 Emma Stephens: Got stuck, he couldn't get past.

349 00:44:26.110 --> 00:44:27.100 Emma Stephens: Yeah…

350 00:44:27.550 --> 00:44:28.090 Graham Stoddart-Stones: That's…

351 00:44:28.090 --> 00:44:38.330 Emma Stephens: the Natural England management plan is to do that, but there is very little option, really, but we have looked at other options of where to do it, where to put it, and what to do with it. So we could chip it.

352 00:44:38.500 --> 00:44:38.930 Jane Carr: Huh.

353 00:44:38.930 --> 00:44:48.100 Emma Stephens: But getting a chipper into the site where the gauze needs to be cut isn't always possible, and then you've got to get the gauze out of where it is to the chipper. I mean, you've got, like, 3 acres of…

354 00:44:48.450 --> 00:44:52.240 Emma Stephens: Cut levels. That's gonna take a lot of bandpower.

355 00:44:53.040 --> 00:44:56.120 Emma Stephens: So really, it's a case of what… how do you deal with it?

356 00:44:58.220 --> 00:44:59.230 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Typically.

357 00:44:59.230 --> 00:45:02.969 Jane Carr: If it was chipped, could it then not… could you not have just the small

358 00:45:03.300 --> 00:45:11.219 Jane Carr: area of the common… I understand that you're taking it away, you don't want to drop it down, because you want the infertile,

359 00:45:11.360 --> 00:45:13.850 Jane Carr: land for…

360 00:45:13.970 --> 00:45:26.539 Jane Carr: for what it's… for what you're trying to keep it as, as it were, but could there not be a corner somewhere, like you've got a playing field in a corner, could there not be a corner where shredded course got.

361 00:45:26.540 --> 00:45:33.409 Emma Stephens: We're still gonna get the gorse out of where it is to that area, that's the problem. You can't get the machinery in to where it is.

362 00:45:38.280 --> 00:45:39.920 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Complicated stuff.

363 00:45:39.920 --> 00:45:40.810 Jane Carr: Yeah.

364 00:45:40.810 --> 00:45:47.729 Graham Stoddart-Stones: So, item 4 here on the screen is of particular interest to Tristram, who is watching how we…

365 00:45:49.260 --> 00:46:02.289 Graham Stoddart-Stones: improving the strength of wood with modern, chemical works so that buildings can become much higher, but wholly made of wood. So we've got skyscrapers in, I think Stockholm is the last one I saw.

366 00:46:02.810 --> 00:46:03.760 tristram cary: Come on.

367 00:46:04.010 --> 00:46:11.690 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Where they are actually using timber in buildings much higher than you'd imagine timber could be used, so the,

368 00:46:12.130 --> 00:46:17.920 Graham Stoddart-Stones: The best place to use timber, if you've got it, or a tree, if you've got to remove it, is to use it for many things.

369 00:46:18.270 --> 00:46:25.500 Graham Stoddart-Stones: And the worst of the lot is the… Set prior to it. So…

370 00:46:28.020 --> 00:46:36.659 Graham Stoddart-Stones: And if you've got wetlands, you want them to remain wet as much as possible. Very difficult in these hot, long summers, I know, but…

371 00:46:36.950 --> 00:46:44.220 Graham Stoddart-Stones: That stores… exposes the stored organic matter to oxygen, and off you go with large quantities of carbon.

372 00:46:44.470 --> 00:46:48.880 Graham Stoddart-Stones: So… The weather really is against us in many ways.

373 00:46:51.370 --> 00:47:02.280 Graham Stoddart-Stones: So, if you wanted to sort of summarize where we are at that, you want to try and protect existing mature habitats with all their trees, because there's massive amount of carbon in those trees.

374 00:47:02.280 --> 00:47:11.570 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Restore wetlands so that they are producing all of those plants around the edges and the insect and amphibian life.

375 00:47:11.810 --> 00:47:18.079 Graham Stoddart-Stones: And I know I'm just going to read this, it's all self-evident to you, but,

376 00:47:18.280 --> 00:47:26.010 Graham Stoddart-Stones: I did like that last statement. The most effective carbon capture technology available to us parish council is healthy soil.

377 00:47:26.590 --> 00:47:31.920 Graham Stoddart-Stones: And it sounds, Emma, as if you're well on the way to working with that, and certainly in

378 00:47:32.040 --> 00:47:33.180 Graham Stoddart-Stones: With it.

379 00:47:33.530 --> 00:47:41.629 Graham Stoddart-Stones: the trials that are being run on the Outer White with what worms can do to help restore the health of the soil, will keep you posted.

380 00:47:44.300 --> 00:47:56.760 Graham Stoddart-Stones: I think the last slide is just to say that there are lots of things for groups to do, individuals to do, community organisations to do, listed on the Great Collaboration website.

381 00:47:56.810 --> 00:48:06.619 Graham Stoddart-Stones: So if you're not familiar with the opening page, you can go down to this Go button, and clicking on the dark green to the left produces a whole list of them.

382 00:48:07.130 --> 00:48:10.100 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Options, and you just select the one that you want.

383 00:48:10.630 --> 00:48:23.029 Graham Stoddart-Stones: And, if people sign up as individuals, and they leave a postcode, then the reports for the appropriate parish council are available from the website.

384 00:48:23.050 --> 00:48:30.660 Graham Stoddart-Stones: on what commitments are being made by individuals of your area, in your area. Just the idea, of course, is that you can harness

385 00:48:30.730 --> 00:48:34.400 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Their actions and help them to work more effectively together.

386 00:48:34.740 --> 00:48:38.059 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Rather more than Big Brother is watching what you're up to.

387 00:48:38.430 --> 00:48:39.780 Graham Stoddart-Stones: But we can see.

388 00:48:40.570 --> 00:48:47.129 Graham Stoddart-Stones: And that's as far as I got this year, or this round, so let me stop sharing.

389 00:48:48.290 --> 00:48:53.369 Graham Stoddart-Stones: And come back to seeing people. Oh, look at the hands, fantastic! Frank, you look like you're first.

390 00:48:53.370 --> 00:49:16.709 Frank Deas, Killearn: Right, thanks. And really, there's just nuances on what you were saying. So, on trees, one thing that wasn't on your list, but willow and alder for remedial planting and riparian situations, to strengthen riverbanks and to provide shade in rivers for aquatic species, we found a really significant add-on. And in some areas that are getting too boggy, I know that sounds unlikely for you down south, but it still happens up here.

391 00:49:16.710 --> 00:49:19.640 Frank Deas, Killearn: They can help dry up the land slightly.

392 00:49:19.640 --> 00:49:21.690 Frank Deas, Killearn: The… the…

393 00:49:21.780 --> 00:49:40.510 Frank Deas, Killearn: pond planting you were talking about, we were also trying to encourage developers who are doing housing schemes, when they've done their suds, to look at things like yellow irises in the suds, because while they're not permanently wet, they're often wet, and native irises seem to flourish in that.

394 00:49:40.550 --> 00:49:51.480 Frank Deas, Killearn: Emma's thing about not leaving the uprisings behind. Absolutely, and we've been fighting constant battles with the Council. The Council wants to improve biodiversity and look at wildflower meadows.

395 00:49:51.850 --> 00:50:06.090 Frank Deas, Killearn: the challenge there is if you don't do cut and collect, the nitrogen from the grass cuttings goes straight back in and strengthen the grass, and wreck everything else. So we need cut and collect. We also, and I say this as someone who's got… not blaming you in England, but one of the challenges is.

396 00:50:06.090 --> 00:50:28.260 Frank Deas, Killearn: everyone thinks wildflowers, and they see this picture of a classic English countryside meadow with corn flowers and poppies, and isn't that wonderful? And it's never going to look like that, and we've got to educate people as to what a wildflower area actually does look like, and why the richness is in diversity in the flowering at different times, and so on. Having said that, moving away from ornamental plants.

397 00:50:28.260 --> 00:50:35.549 Frank Deas, Killearn: We've finally managed, and it happened on cost grounds rather than anything else, but the council's given up the idea of bedding plants, and doing bedding plants.

398 00:50:35.640 --> 00:50:49.749 Frank Deas, Killearn: But there's an organization we have called Beds for Bees that works with community groups and advises them on suitable perennials that will give them nice displays at particular times, but will give good ground cover, will thicken out.

399 00:50:49.860 --> 00:50:57.180 Frank Deas, Killearn: And are very pollinator-friendly, so they will be good in a sort of wider sense. And last couple of points. One is.

400 00:50:57.420 --> 00:51:08.629 Frank Deas, Killearn: when we're talking about… I know your focus was on community land. We've got some good farmers, and the problem is they are literally ostracized and pilloried by their fellow farmers.

401 00:51:08.930 --> 00:51:21.019 Frank Deas, Killearn: You know, farmers who are doing the right thing are not popular amongst other farmers, whether it's a kind of, no, no, no, we've been doing this for generations and we don't want to change, or whether it's because they recognize that that's actually the direction of travel.

402 00:51:21.020 --> 00:51:33.929 Frank Deas, Killearn: But we have farmers who are doing some great. We talked about mixed livestock grazing, where you put in your heavy cattle and your pigs, and they root around, and they disturb, and they help regenerate soil, and that's tremendous.

403 00:51:33.930 --> 00:51:46.579 Frank Deas, Killearn: I spent, 3 hours last night at a farm up in Argati, where… which was one of the first in Scotland to introduce beavers, and I spent 3 hours watching a beaver pond and seeing the beavers at play. But…

404 00:51:46.580 --> 00:52:05.659 Frank Deas, Killearn: there were literally death threats for the farmer when he introduced them in 2020, because the other farmers are anti-weaver, on principle. It's just one of those things. So we need to, as communities and as individuals, lionize our farmers who are doing the right thing to give them the confidence to try and do that and promote that.

405 00:52:05.660 --> 00:52:13.929 Frank Deas, Killearn: And then the last one I would just mention is, when we're talking about grasslands, we're trying to get greater awareness of the concept of ancient grassland.

406 00:52:14.100 --> 00:52:29.509 Frank Deas, Killearn: So if you've had grassland that's been continuously grazed, so they've not used, they've not plowed it, they've not used additives, they've not done anything else for 100 plus years, not only is it incredibly carbon-rich in its own right, but it will probably be incredibly mycelium rich as well.

407 00:52:29.540 --> 00:52:42.860 Frank Deas, Killearn: And you'll get these incredible fungi crops, and they have a multiplier effect on the amount of carbon that's then held within the soil, so it's a really good news story. But we had one in one of our neighboring villages where we managed to actually intervene, but

408 00:52:42.860 --> 00:53:05.709 Frank Deas, Killearn: The farmer was all set… he was fed up doing sheep grazing, which his family had been doing for hundreds of years. He was all set to plow it up and put in trees, because he could get a grant for doing that, because everyone knows trees are good. Trees are the right thing to do, and we had to disrupt that. Luckily, there's a really good Dutch ecologist near us who did the surveys and found that with 20-plus species of waxcap, so it's the richest waxcap site in Scotland.

409 00:53:05.710 --> 00:53:09.729 Frank Deas, Killearn: it's now going to be a SSSI, so that particular one's been nipped in the bud.

410 00:53:09.730 --> 00:53:19.459 Frank Deas, Killearn: But there's a general trend that we need to try and help people understand, as you were saying at SARCM. Trees are good, but they're not the only way of doing biodiversity.

411 00:53:19.460 --> 00:53:19.840 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Hmm.

412 00:53:19.840 --> 00:53:33.710 Frank Deas, Killearn: But, but there are, there are good news stories out there. I live in a comparatively recent development that Tiger Mickel did in Scotland of 36 houses. At the edge, there were wilder areas. They did some sort of, sort of planting native hedging, but not particularly good.

413 00:53:33.800 --> 00:53:52.609 Frank Deas, Killearn: Three years ago, I got together with the conservation volunteers and eight families in the development, and we planted 780 hedging quips and young trees, over the course of a weekend. The kids loved it, they were so enthusiastic, it was a lesson for them, and we're now beginning to see some of that coming through as

414 00:53:52.610 --> 00:53:58.130 Frank Deas, Killearn: untamed scrub, or wilderness, whatever you want to call it. So, there's lots of stuff, and I think…

415 00:53:58.130 --> 00:54:09.339 Frank Deas, Killearn: That was a really good presentation, Graeme, in terms of kick-starting it and making us rethink how we do it, and then we just localize the message and localize the impact into what we're… what works best in our area.

416 00:54:10.460 --> 00:54:17.660 Graham Stoddart-Stones: You're just highlighting how crucial this education bit is, is the poor old farmers getting lionised? That's awful.

417 00:54:18.470 --> 00:54:27.999 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Okay, well, thanks very much, Frank. I'm not quite sure, Sue, why you got displaced by David, but would Sue like to go first, as a matter of courtesy?

418 00:54:28.000 --> 00:54:38.769 Sue Burton: Don't worry, it was, my small points from me. So, I picked up on your original list about education.

419 00:54:38.840 --> 00:54:52.840 Sue Burton: and the basic things, the list of what the town parish councils can do. And I wanted to highlight the difficulty of messaging, because we find ourselves

420 00:54:52.900 --> 00:55:08.049 Sue Burton: having to say the same thing, because we have to keep saying the same message. Example, in our town council, the clerk suggests so-and-so plant, so we say, well, is that native?

421 00:55:08.230 --> 00:55:28.090 Sue Burton: Oh, no. Okay. Could we have an example of a native one, and then the experts come in? So, I want to build in that we need to think about what to do in relation to climate change, and what trees should be used and suggested, but we find ourselves having to

422 00:55:28.100 --> 00:55:35.070 Sue Burton: stick with the same message, otherwise we're not getting anywhere, and I find that balance difficult.

423 00:55:35.280 --> 00:55:44.730 Sue Burton: We've managed to shift from, No Mo May to slow-mo Summer.

424 00:55:44.750 --> 00:55:54.669 Sue Burton: And that's been… I took some convincing, but it actually has been adopt… at least setting our example

425 00:55:54.670 --> 00:56:08.210 Sue Burton: We're… I'm down in the south, in East Sussex, and it's a good… to do what's right for your environment, your climate is the right thing to do, and I was convinced. And I…

426 00:56:08.220 --> 00:56:10.349 Sue Burton: I think we're getting there.

427 00:56:10.420 --> 00:56:21.339 Sue Burton: The bit that I'd like to ask about, and you… we're highlighting, we're going back to soil, how… how do we know, how can we…

428 00:56:21.530 --> 00:56:38.070 Sue Burton: look after our soil. So we've… the emphasis on this particular presentation is think about your soil, what have you got? What are you doing to look after it? We had some hints there, but how do we know? How can we tell our residents

429 00:56:38.490 --> 00:56:45.620 Sue Burton: Our soil is like this because we've got that. We've done that.

430 00:56:46.100 --> 00:57:00.130 Sue Burton: So, that's my question, really, after all those comments, which I've really loved the presentation. I'll definitely go back and look at the slides earlier on about the individuals and all that. That's great, great, the impact stuff.

431 00:57:01.040 --> 00:57:05.730 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Does anyone have an answer for Sue's question about the quality of the soil?

432 00:57:06.690 --> 00:57:19.579 Emma Stephens: I was gonna… sorry, I was gonna suggest to Jane about her patch of land that, there are lots of local groups with lots of very expert knowledge, like wildlife trusts or Natural England. You could always ask for advice about

433 00:57:19.720 --> 00:57:22.400 Emma Stephens: Your particular location, and…

434 00:57:23.300 --> 00:57:33.829 Emma Stephens: if you've got a patch of land which you want to leave to be more wild, it probably will still need some management, otherwise you'll just end up with brambles. So,

435 00:57:34.510 --> 00:57:38.679 Emma Stephens: having some advice about what's… what it would be suitable for. I mean, certainly.

436 00:57:39.000 --> 00:57:51.250 Emma Stephens: And talking about soil on our common, the common has very little soil, because it's… it's on chalk, and it's mostly… it'll grab on… it's mostly very thin, but we actually scraped some of the soil away in great big, like, 250 long

437 00:57:51.330 --> 00:58:00.000 Emma Stephens: Scrapes, because there's a particular rare butterfly on the common which needs bare earth, or bare, gravel and chalk to…

438 00:58:00.100 --> 00:58:02.860 Emma Stephens: Come and do its thing on, what it does to it, but…

439 00:58:03.360 --> 00:58:09.059 Emma Stephens: So, I'll just look out for local people that can give you advice. There are people out there.

440 00:58:09.430 --> 00:58:11.020 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Plenty of them, yes.

441 00:58:11.310 --> 00:58:19.030 Sue Burton: I'm sorry, Graham, could I come back with an… I'm interested to hear comments on soil, but could I come back with another point? I'm sorry.

442 00:58:19.300 --> 00:58:20.890 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Don't suit.

443 00:58:21.340 --> 00:58:36.370 Sue Burton: Thank you. Is that, being patient with me? We, in our town council, we purchased, from our Biodiversity Data center, the, our Civil Parish's data,

444 00:58:36.530 --> 00:58:39.180 Sue Burton: information,

445 00:58:39.220 --> 00:58:59.900 Sue Burton: And that was useful, paid about £80 for it, but it's a very high-level, data, but it, in the, in the data, the SSSIs haven't been inspected, looked at, at all for 20-odd years. The whole data is not very up-to-date, just eventually

446 00:59:00.240 --> 00:59:09.420 Sue Burton: thinking of doing, of purchasing for their parish, you know, it's a start, but also very difficult for a layperson to really interpret.

447 00:59:10.870 --> 00:59:13.730 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Thanks, Sue. David, you've been very patient.

448 00:59:19.250 --> 00:59:20.309 David Newman: Yes.

449 00:59:20.600 --> 00:59:29.399 David Newman: C… Looking at the… High, medium, low-impact things you did.

450 00:59:29.600 --> 00:59:37.519 David Newman: From the perspective of an urban parish with no land, It leads to different things.

451 00:59:38.200 --> 00:59:47.280 David Newman: The biggest impact here would actually be getting the social housing Cup providers.

452 00:59:47.510 --> 00:59:48.939 David Newman: to speed up

453 00:59:49.310 --> 01:00:02.289 David Newman: retrofitting their houses, which I have to do by 2030 to get it to Grade C, but it would make a lot of difference to do it earlier and go beyond C.

454 01:00:02.440 --> 01:00:10.369 David Newman: They're very good on new houses, but they're actually bad at maintenance, let alone retrofitting the old ones.

455 01:00:11.240 --> 01:00:12.120 David Newman: The what?

456 01:00:12.310 --> 01:00:16.159 David Newman: Now, the parish council can't do that, we don't own them.

457 01:00:16.390 --> 01:00:23.060 David Newman: But we can… we could do things that would encourage it, Such as…

458 01:00:24.550 --> 01:00:32.160 David Newman: Giraffe Busters, which has worked in other places, that's only a small effect, but people learn about it.

459 01:00:32.320 --> 01:00:36.229 David Newman: And the thing that… Some other groups have done…

460 01:00:36.390 --> 01:00:43.730 David Newman: Visits to houses with solar panels and heat pumps and so on, so people learn about that.

461 01:00:44.050 --> 01:00:54.010 David Newman: And then on a bigger scale, it comes to the district and county councils, like setting up a heat network here, because we're not far from a car factory.

462 01:00:54.400 --> 01:00:57.920 David Newman: So that's beyond what we can do at our small scale.

463 01:00:58.980 --> 01:01:05.689 David Newman: On the biodiversity side, we don't have much land. We do actually have a nature park.

464 01:01:06.180 --> 01:01:13.019 David Newman: And we did actually have a local group, Nature in the Leeds, bring around an ecologist.

465 01:01:13.170 --> 01:01:16.810 David Newman: And the suggestions are to not do everything at once.

466 01:01:17.170 --> 01:01:24.860 David Newman: But cut some of the brambles, and leave the other ones for their biodiversity. Do it the other way around next year.

467 01:01:24.990 --> 01:01:28.850 David Newman: Find places to stick a few benches for people to sit.

468 01:01:29.250 --> 01:01:31.830 David Newman: Arrange things for people to look at.

469 01:01:32.410 --> 01:01:35.740 David Newman: At all the Marshalliers we have here.

470 01:01:36.120 --> 01:01:41.639 David Newman: But we don't… it's not a large-scale thing, so these are all small-scale initiatives.

471 01:01:42.490 --> 01:01:43.090 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Well…

472 01:01:43.090 --> 01:01:47.389 David Newman: And the question I have… It's how can we

473 01:01:49.230 --> 01:01:55.159 David Newman: Mitigate or ameliorate climate change through a neighbourhood plan.

474 01:02:01.310 --> 01:02:14.590 Graham Stoddart-Stones: I don't think I can give you a one-minute answer on that one. I'm very glad you asked that question, and I'll try and find some answers. But I don't know. Joanie's laughing, only Joanie's got a point to make.

475 01:02:15.990 --> 01:02:23.820 Jane Carr: I just wanted to… it's a little bit in answer to Sue's question, I think that…

476 01:02:24.910 --> 01:02:33.679 Jane Carr: I think that, the town and parish council land and scrub land and that sort of thing is…

477 01:02:33.980 --> 01:02:41.019 Jane Carr: Kind of one situation, but actually encouraging, your local people

478 01:02:41.140 --> 01:02:44.980 Jane Carr: to all the things that were actually on Graham's list.

479 01:02:45.110 --> 01:02:48.280 Jane Carr: To… in their own garden, because if we all

480 01:02:50.050 --> 01:03:06.880 Jane Carr: create gardens that are good for wildlife, then… even if 50% or even 20% of us create gardens for wildlife, rather than gardens for flat lawns and, petunias,

481 01:03:07.280 --> 01:03:18.440 Jane Carr: it would make a vast area over England, if all that… so, leading your… leading your individual householders

482 01:03:18.490 --> 01:03:31.669 Jane Carr: Onto… for instance, there's a… there's a… and then that's to do with no dig, and, composting and mulching, and that just builds the worms.

483 01:03:31.740 --> 01:03:33.360 Jane Carr: In your goal, because the…

484 01:03:33.570 --> 01:03:49.149 Jane Carr: Our gardens, we kind of want to be fertile, because what we're growing in our gardens are… well, I grow a lot to eat in my garden, so what we're growing in our gardens, we want pretty flowers, we want, and we want food to feed ourselves, whereas

485 01:03:49.540 --> 01:04:05.529 Jane Carr: Emma's kind of situation, or wildflower meadows and that sort of thing, it's the infertility you want. So, there's where, when you're mowing, you need to take the cuttings away, so that they don't re-feed

486 01:04:05.530 --> 01:04:12.619 Jane Carr: The land so that you can get the, the meadow plants that would be,

487 01:04:12.850 --> 01:04:21.120 Jane Carr: that we'd be growing, in a meadow. We've got a wonderful… I'm in the forest of Dean, and we have, a Dean Meadows Society.

488 01:04:21.120 --> 01:04:34.289 Jane Carr: And they've got… they've encouraged so many different landowners, to make meadows on their land. But it's very different things that we do, in different areas, and…

489 01:04:34.790 --> 01:04:38.599 Jane Carr: Certainly encouraging… encouraging,

490 01:04:38.910 --> 01:04:58.029 Jane Carr: people to… gardeners, to do the no-dig method of gardening, and in fact, if you look up no-dig gardening, you'll find a chap called Charles Dowding, who does wonderful little videos and how to make new gardening beds

491 01:04:58.120 --> 01:05:10.249 Jane Carr: Just by putting down cardboard and a bit of compost on top, instead of trying to dig up all your turf and that sort of thing, which just… it keeps lots of carbon in, and is very good for awareness.

492 01:05:11.410 --> 01:05:12.240 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Wow.

493 01:05:14.990 --> 01:05:18.350 Graham Stoddart-Stones: I'm just going to… I'm just typing a note.

494 01:05:19.600 --> 01:05:22.600 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Frank, would you like to roll on, please?

495 01:05:23.370 --> 01:05:28.510 Frank Deas, Killearn: No, I think my point's been answered, so I'll withdraw.

496 01:05:28.510 --> 01:05:32.690 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Okay, we're on to Andrew, then.

497 01:05:33.270 --> 01:05:45.880 Andrew Clegg, Martock, Somerset: So, just a quick one on neighbourhood plans. The first thing that's very, very important is that you must, in your neighborhood plan, identify sufficient areas for building.

498 01:05:45.880 --> 01:06:01.760 Andrew Clegg, Martock, Somerset: be your allocation of houses, because that gives you a lot of leverage with developers not to touch things that you don't want to be touched. And the second thing that we've done is we've gone through NPPF and the local plan.

499 01:06:01.790 --> 01:06:15.599 Andrew Clegg, Martock, Somerset: And what we've done is selected various environmental policies from them, and we have simply interpreted them in terms of the village, you know.

500 01:06:15.840 --> 01:06:17.000 Andrew Clegg, Martock, Somerset: So that…

501 01:06:17.530 --> 01:06:18.210 Graham Stoddart-Stones: deadly.

502 01:06:18.730 --> 01:06:24.130 Andrew Clegg, Martock, Somerset: That's pretty well all I think that you need to do in the neighborhood plan.

503 01:06:42.420 --> 01:06:48.160 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Look, this is what I'm gonna do.

504 01:06:48.510 --> 01:07:05.140 Frank Deas, Killearn: Actually, just quickly picking up on something, I think it was, what David was saying about, retrofit schemes and getting community housing involved. I do sometimes kind of fall out with some of my colleagues, who I respect hugely, who are working in this area in Scotland, because

505 01:07:05.310 --> 01:07:16.980 Frank Deas, Killearn: We have the concept of a just transition, and the concept of making sure that no one gets left behind, and the concept of focusing on the people who will struggle with fuel poverty is really, really important.

506 01:07:17.200 --> 01:07:26.559 Frank Deas, Killearn: But the big difference will come from the people who have the discretion to keep paying the fuel bills, but choose not to, because they worry about the environment.

507 01:07:31.370 --> 01:07:37.529 Frank Deas, Killearn: all the community schemes that we do, I don't think are going to have the impact that we're looking for.

508 01:07:37.690 --> 01:07:48.590 Frank Deas, Killearn: So I do think we need to try and reach out and get those who are well enough off that they don't really have to worry about food waste, or about flying, or about anything else, and get them to change their minds.

509 01:07:48.950 --> 01:07:51.799 Frank Deas, Killearn: Or at least become involved and change some of their minds.

510 01:07:52.800 --> 01:08:04.650 Graham Stoddart-Stones: And I think that's going to become more and more important over the years, as the groundswell from the People's Emergency Briefing, I think, grows. This will all be part of it, but absolutely. Penny, you've been very patient.

511 01:08:05.160 --> 01:08:06.970 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Would you like to go now, please?

512 01:08:07.580 --> 01:08:09.860 Penny Quilter: Thank you. I was just…

513 01:08:10.080 --> 01:08:21.499 Penny Quilter: Couple of points, really. One about allotments, which is my favourite subject, but just to say, about neighbourhood plans, Weymouth have had one,

514 01:08:21.939 --> 01:08:27.430 Penny Quilter: what's the word? Approved, you know, last year. And,

515 01:08:27.609 --> 01:08:43.819 Penny Quilter: there was a lot we couldn't put in, a lot of things that the community wanted around, you know, environmental targets and protections for land that couldn't be put there. So it's… we started off with grand sort of ambitions and…

516 01:08:43.830 --> 01:08:52.229 Penny Quilter: and hopes, that had to be watered down to sort of fit with the current, you know, MPPF, which is, you know, it's good on some things, but it hasn't got everything.

517 01:08:52.229 --> 01:09:04.020 Penny Quilter: And one of the ways we got round it is we developed something called a set of environmental targets that the council had as a document that was referenced in it, but we couldn't

518 01:09:04.020 --> 01:09:13.689 Penny Quilter: say… put it as part of the policy, we could only have it as a… an ambition, and it included a target for the standard of soil, and how

519 01:09:13.740 --> 01:09:23.630 Penny Quilter: sites were left when developers moved off, so that might be of interest to have a look at. It's a rather large document, but…

520 01:09:23.750 --> 01:09:27.250 Penny Quilter: You can pick and choose the bits, if you're doing.

521 01:09:27.250 --> 01:09:30.410 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Are you gonna add… are you gonna add that to the chat?

522 01:09:30.410 --> 01:09:34.340 Penny Quilter: I can do, yes. And then the other one is really just… is…

523 01:09:34.430 --> 01:09:43.409 Penny Quilter: What's… I'm just a resident, but I do work quite closely with the Council, and we're going to have a scrutiny of our allotments

524 01:09:43.500 --> 01:09:55.770 Penny Quilter: Coming up. Literally, it's just been approved and said that we can. Partly because of the frustration of, people like myself who are keen.

525 01:09:55.770 --> 01:09:56.210 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Fuck.

526 01:09:56.220 --> 01:10:16.000 Penny Quilter: Charles Dowding and No Dig and permaculture, which is all about working with nature and the land and keeping the carbon, you know, locked in. But our allotments are very much, very denuded. The quality of the plots is very poor.

527 01:10:16.930 --> 01:10:20.569 Penny Quilter: And there's a lot of pressure on people to sort of…

528 01:10:20.980 --> 01:10:26.739 Penny Quilter: Dig it up, get it cultivated, rotate it, and plant it in rows. That feels so…

529 01:10:27.940 --> 01:10:46.090 Penny Quilter: well, just painful, I just get very obsessed about it. So I just want… the question is, is that… is anybody doing anything with allotments in any of the parishes, and is there anything that we could learn from, you know, as we go into a scrutiny, sort of process, which I've never been in before, but I'm hoping we will be included as…

530 01:10:46.330 --> 01:10:47.460 Penny Quilter: Part of it.

531 01:10:48.150 --> 01:10:49.199 Penny Quilter: Thank you.

532 01:10:52.090 --> 01:10:53.709 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Don't you, Gary, please.

533 01:10:54.030 --> 01:10:56.089 Graham Stoddart-Stones: And thanks, Benny.

534 01:10:56.970 --> 01:11:03.220 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Yeah, I just wanted to respond to Frank's, post about the red kites in Argaty, just to say that,

535 01:11:03.870 --> 01:11:12.649 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: I spent many years living in Bonny Bridge, just down the road, and never saw a red kite in my life. I've moved to North Wiltshire, and I see them pretty much every day now.

536 01:11:12.950 --> 01:11:15.960 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Wonderful.

537 01:11:16.310 --> 01:11:19.000 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Yeah, they're a big success in the, in this…

538 01:11:19.190 --> 01:11:26.260 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: this area of the country between… and they're now in Somerset as well, they've spread into Somerset. You'll be seeing them quite soon, I believe, Andrew.

539 01:11:26.730 --> 01:11:27.240 Emma Stephens: We don't know.

540 01:11:27.900 --> 01:11:28.710 Emma Stephens: capture.

541 01:11:30.650 --> 01:11:38.210 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Okay, well, thanks, Andrew, for your comment about the neighborhood plan. Again, people will pick up on that.

542 01:11:38.450 --> 01:11:41.100 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Back to Penny, and I'm gonna have to say…

543 01:11:41.100 --> 01:11:42.259 Andrew Clegg, Martock, Somerset: We have kites.

544 01:11:44.360 --> 01:11:51.769 Graham Stoddart-Stones: I'm just announcing in advance, I'm gonna have to leave in 4 minutes, but, you're very welcome to stay on if someone else will host.

545 01:11:51.890 --> 01:11:54.809 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Penny, you've dropped your call, so…

546 01:11:55.270 --> 01:11:57.990 Penny Quilter: I left… I hadn't put my hand down, sorry.

547 01:11:58.290 --> 01:12:00.770 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Oh, that's right. Well…

548 01:12:01.550 --> 01:12:11.439 Graham Stoddart-Stones: I'm very grateful for all your attendance, and particularly the ideas and the conversations that you sparked. Brilliant, thank you very much. Is there anything else that anyone else wants to add?

549 01:12:11.700 --> 01:12:14.159 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Before I start running for trains.

550 01:12:16.260 --> 01:12:27.950 Graham Stoddart-Stones: No, well, you've been a wonderful audience, thank you very much. I would love to tell you what I'm going to be talking, or what someone's going to be talking about next week, but I don't know yet. We live in such a well-organized society here.

551 01:12:28.220 --> 01:12:32.779 Graham Stoddart-Stones: Take care, everybody, thank you very much for your time, and enjoy the heat as best you can.

552 01:12:32.780 --> 01:12:34.350 Sue Burton: Yeah. Bye, everybody!

553 01:12:34.350 --> 01:12:35.120 Jane Carr: Everybody!

554 01:12:36.250 --> 01:12:36.775 Jane Carr: Bye!

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Markdown copy of presentation:

Efficient Climate Change Actions

Great Collaboration Banter Session 125 24 June 2026 Graham Stoddart-Stones

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The Big Idea

"The actions people talk about most are often not the actions that matter most."

Popular "feel-good" actions such as recycling and planting individual trees are usually far less effective than actions that significantly reduce emissions or increase long-term carbon storage.

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Aim of the Presentation

What can individuals, parish councils and community organisations do to combat climate change most effectively?

The presentation first establishes common principles before exploring some of the less obvious, but more effective, actions.

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Most Effective Climate Actions

Focus on impact, not visibility.

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The Impact Principle

A relatively small number of actions produce the majority of emissions reductions.

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Topics Covered

• Individuals (particularly homeowners)

• Parish and Town Councils

• Community Organisations

• Nature Recovery

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Individuals — Climate Impact Pyramid

★★★★★ Highest Impact

• Fly less

• Install heat pumps

• Improve insulation

• Reduce car use

• Adopt a more plant-rich diet

★★★★ Medium Impact

• Install solar PV

• Buy renewable electricity

• Reduce food waste

• Repair rather than replace

★★ Lower Impact

• Recycling

• Reusable shopping bags

• Turn off standby appliances

• Planting individual trees

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Parish Councils

Key roles include:

• Influence

• Convene

• Demonstrate

• Manage land for nature

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Community Organisations — Climate Impact Pyramid

★★★★★ Highest Impact

• Change social norms

• Local influence

• Policy engagement

★★★★ Medium Impact

• Community energy

• Repair cafés

• Tool libraries

• Shared transport

★★ Lower Impact

• Awareness posters

• Occasional litter clean-ups

• Token tree planting

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Nature Recovery Pyramid

★★★★★ Highest Impact

• Rewild habitats

• Create wetlands

• Create ponds

• Increase soil carbon

• Reduce mowing

★★★★ Medium Impact

• Native hedgerows

• Wildflower planting

• Improve habitat connectivity

★★ Lower Impact

• Ornamental planting

• Isolated trees

• Formal lawns

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Soil Stores Most Carbon

Most carbon within healthy ecosystems is stored beneath the vegetation, in the soil.

A mature oak stores several tonnes of carbon, but:

• Species-rich meadows

• Wetlands

• Scrub habitats

can often store even more carbon over time through soil accumulation.

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Best UK Plants for Long-Term Carbon Storage

Large Native Trees

• English Oak

• Sessile Oak

• Beech

• Small-leaved Lime

• Sweet Chestnut

These species can continue accumulating carbon for centuries if left standing.

Scrub (Often Under-Appreciated)

Examples:

• Blackthorn

• Hawthorn

• Gorse

• Dog Rose

Benefits include:

• Building soil carbon

• Supporting insects and birds

• Storm resilience

• Natural regeneration

Allowing scrub to develop naturally may often be more effective than planting rows of trees.

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Meadows and Long Grass

Species-rich grassland stores large quantities of carbon underground.

Grasses

• Red Fescue

• Crested Dog's-tail

• Meadow Foxtail

Wildflowers

• Bird's-foot Trefoil

• Oxeye Daisy

• Common Knapweed

• Yarrow

Deep root systems continually increase soil organic matter.

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Wetlands and Ponds

Among the most effective habitats for carbon storage.

Typical plants include:

• Common Reed

• Reedmace

• Yellow Flag Iris

Waterlogged soils slow decomposition, allowing carbon to accumulate.

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Preventing Carbon Returning to the Atmosphere

Carbon remains stored only while ecosystems remain healthy.

1. Increase Soil Carbon

Actions include:

• Leave roots undisturbed

• Minimise digging

• Apply mulch and compost

• Leave leaf litter

• Reduce mowing

Soil carbon may remain stored for decades or centuries.

2. Protect Mature Vegetation

Protecting a century-old tree generally stores more carbon than replacing it with a sapling.

Conserving existing habitats is usually better than replacing them.

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Additional Measures

3. Avoid Burning

Avoid:

• Bonfires

• Burning garden waste

• Routine scrub burning

4. Use Timber Wisely

If trees must be removed:

Better

• Buildings

• Furniture

• Long-life products

Worse

• Firewood

• Biomass fuel

5. Maintain Wetlands

Draining wetlands exposes stored organic matter to oxygen, rapidly releasing carbon.

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Carbon Storage Hierarchy

1. Protect existing mature habitats

2. Restore wetlands

3. Rewild grassland and scrub

4. Plant appropriate native trees

5. Plant ornamental trees

6. Annual flower displays

"The most effective carbon-capture technology available to a parish council is healthy soil."

This reflects modern ecosystem science and challenges the common assumption that tree planting alone is the answer.

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Further Information

The presentation directs viewers to the Great Collaboration website:

Individuals Toolkit

https://greatcollaboration.uk/toolkit-individual-actions/

Users are encouraged to explore the Individuals and Councils sections for practical actions and commitments.

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Thank You