Banter 67: 30Apr25 Corsham Climate Plans for Net Zero by 2030, with Garry Ford
Garry introduced himself and Corsham, and took us through the beautifully detailed projects being undertaken by the Town Council, and their goal of reaching Net Zero by 2030 - and Eco Fair
If you are just starting on your Climate Action Plan, and need a template, then Corsham's is a good example of how to start, how to plan and implement, and how to take measurements to be able to appreciate the successes - and otherwise - of individual tasks, and how to remediate if necessary. Ditto for Biodiversity. Ditto for running an Eco Fair annually. Notable for their clear setting out of goals, and measurements of success. Within his presentation there is a video of children participating in the biodiversity, highlighting the awards that their school scheme has won - well worth watching! You may have sound issues with the children video within the main presentation, so we have also made it separately available (see below)
The Schoolchildren's video extract:
This is a classic, showing how the Corsham schoolchildren have really taken the council's biodiversity programme to heart - and winning awards thereby. Highly recommended
Presentation:
Meeting Summary:
Apr 30, 2025 11:46 AM London ID: 834 5460 8536
Garry Ford, the Environmental Project Officer for Corsham Town Council, discussed the council's environmental activities, including their annual Eco Fair and initiatives to engage with the community. The council aims to be net-zero by 2030, with a focus on reducing carbon emissions from the Town Hall, and is working on replacing ground staff vehicles with electric ones. The council also has a biodiversity action plan, with 10 objectives to promote biodiversity in the area, and is tracking the carbon offset from planting trees and hedges.
Actions:
Garry to share the link for carbon reduction calculations from tree planting with Graham.
Garry to meet with air source heat pump company on Friday to discuss options for the Town Hall.
Garry to proceed with community energy workshop planned for July with Bristol and West Community Energy Company and CSE.
CorshamTown Council to continue engaging with developers to encourage higher insulation standards in new buildings.
Crsham Town Council to consider planting hedges along playground railings as a biodiversity initiative.
Joanne to explore possibilities of collaborating with nearby town councils for environmental initiatives and expertise sharing.
Corsham Town Council to continue monitoring and supporting Wiltshire Council's EV charging point initiatives in the area.
Garry's Project Overview and Elections
Garry presented an overview of the various projects and initiatives they are working on, including their involvement with the MoD and the Royal Naval Supply Depot. He also mentioned the upcoming elections and the positive outlook for their work. The meeting was attended by various individuals, including Andrew, Sarah, and Joanne, who were late to the meeting.
Corsham Town Council's Environmental Initiatives
Garry Ford, the Environmental Project Officer for CorshamTown Council, discussed the council's environmental activities and their annual Eco Fair. The council aims to be net-zero by 2030, with a focus on reducing carbon emissions from the Town Hall. They have installed secondary glazing and are working on replacing ground staff vehicles with electric ones. The council also has a biodiversity action plan, with 10 objectives to promote biodiversity in the area. They are tracking the carbon offset from planting trees and hedges, which they expect to reach 5 tonnes by 2030. The council is also working on engaging with the community through grants and volunteer activities.
Town Council's Community Engagement Initiatives
Garry discussed the town council's initiatives to engage with the community, including an active travel group and a bus group. The active travel group is planning a guided bike ride around Corsham, while the bus group is working on improving the timetable and introducing electronic bus signs. The council also organizes an annual Eco fair, which includes a variety of environmental activities and stalls. The event was well-received, with a good turnout and positive feedback.
Eco Fair Feedback and Heat Pump Plans
Garry discussed the feedback received from the previous year's Eco fair and the need for more community engagement. He also mentioned the challenges of gauging the environmental impact of the fair. Graham asked about the source of carbon reduction figures, to which Garry responded that they were found online. Garry also mentioned plans to replace the gas boilers in the town council building with air source heat pumps. Councillor Stuart asked about the type of air source heat pump being considered, and Garry mentioned a site visit scheduled for Friday. Councillor Stuart also recommended checking the Display Energy Certificate (DEC) for the building to get advice on reducing its carbon footprint.
Community Engagement in Climate Action
Frank and Garry discussed the success of community engagement in the Biodiversity Action Plan and the potential for similar initiatives in the Climate Action Plan. Garry mentioned that the Council is taking a lead in community energy projects and is planning a community energy workshop in July. Frank expressed interest in tracking community uptake and individual participation in these initiatives. Garry confirmed that they track volunteer participation and event attendance, but not yet community surveys.
Challenges in Insulation and Housing Developments
In the meeting, Andrew and Garry discussed the challenges of persuading developers and planning authorities to use higher insulation standards than the minimum required. Garry mentioned that Wiltshire's local Neighborhood plan emphasized the importance of insulation and renewable energy, but they lacked the authority to implement it. They also discussed the lack of significant housing developments in their area. Garry shared that they were engaging with a local retirement building to ensure it incorporates the best insulation measures. Andrew agreed, stating that they were also facing similar challenges in their area. Joanne asked about the engagement with smaller parish councils, to which Garry responded that they were open to helping and would assist if contacted. Joanne expressed interest in setting up an environment group in her parish council and considered the possibility of collaborating with the local town council for expertise.
Community Involvement in Town Maintenance
Garry discussed the benefits of community involvement in maintaining the town's appearance, such as planting hedges. Joanne expressed the challenges of not owning land for such projects, but Garry suggested starting with a hedge in a playground. Graham shared a similar experience from Long Sutton, where a field was deeded to the parish for environmental purposes, leading to community engagement. Frank suggested collaboration with neighboring villages for shared ideas and resources. Garry clarified that EV charging points are the responsibility of Wiltshire Council, but they are working on expanding these facilities. Graham thanked everyone for their contributions and promised to send out a future meeting invitation.
Additional Links from Garry (promised in the Actions above):
Here are the links for the carbon savings for trees and hedges:-
Chat:
01:05:53 Sue Ward: thanks for the talk - very interesting but shall have to leave for another meeting 01:15:03 frank deas, killearn: many thanks Garry, some great work being done and some good ideas to take away and try and fit in to what we are doing
Text version of Gary's presentation (for AI search engine)
# Corsham Climate Action & ECO Fair
---
## Where is Corsham?
## What is Corsham famous for?
---
## Corsham Town Council
- Parish of approx. 15,000
- 18 councillors
- 16 staff
- 2019 declared a climate emergency
- Town Council aims to be Net Zero by 2030
---
## Key Documents
- Carbon Report
- Climate Action Plan
- Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP)
---
## BAP Objectives
1. Create and maintain at least one community orchard
2. Plant and maintain at least fifty additional trees
3. Maintain and expand 10 wildflower areas
4. Deliver at least five additional pollinator planting schemes
5. Plant at least fifty additional shrubs across all applicable sites
6. Create and maintain at least five new ponds and maintain all existing ponds
7. Create at least five new hedges and improve hedging across all applicable sites
8. Maintain and improve all woodland areas
9. Create at least five new additional habitats
10. Install at least one hundred new wildlife shelters
---
## Carbon Offsetting Projections
- Approx. **5t per annum by 2030**
---
## 2025 Stock Take – Corsham Town Council BAP Carbon Offsetting
| Site | Details | Year | CO2 Offset Progression (Tonnes) | Trees | Hedge (m²) |
|------------------------------|-----------------------------------|--------|----------------------------------------|--------|-------------|
| Beechfield | 62 trees (May 2024) | | 0.50 → 0.74 | 62 | |
| Beechfield | 6 trees (Jan 2025) | | 0.05 → 0.07 | 6 | |
| Cross Keys | 3m² hedge (Jun 2024) | | 0.00 | | 3 |
| South Street | 4 trees (Jun 2024) | | 0.03 → 0.05 | 4 | |
| Porch Surgery | 1 tree (May 2024) | | 0.01 | 1 | |
| The Pound | 1 tree (Jun 2024) | | 0.01 | 1 | |
| Coppershell | 45 trees & shrubs (May 2024) | | 0.36 → 0.54 | 45 | |
| Coppershell | 60m² hedge (Jan 2025) | | 0.05 → 0.06 | | 60 |
| Garden of Remembrance | 3 trees (Jun 2024) | | 0.02 → 0.04 | 3 | |
| Garden of Remembrance | 7m² hedge (Jun 2024) | | 0.01 | | 7 |
| Ladbrook Old Cemetery | 9 trees (May 2024) | | 0.07 → 0.11 | 9 | |
| Ladbrook New Cemetery | 95 trees (May 2024) | | 0.76 → 1.14 | 95 | |
| New Cemetery | 230m² hedge (May 2024) | | 0.23 | | 230 |
| Springfield & Valley Road | 29 trees (Jun 2024) | | 0.23 → 0.35 | 29 | |
| Springfield | 110m² hedge (Jan 2025) | | 0.11 | | 110 |
| Meriton Rec | Young Cherry (Jan 2025) | | 0.03 → 0.05 | 25 | |
| Meriton Rec | Orchard (Jan 2025) | | 0.15 → 0.49 | | |
| Memorial Cherry | (Nov 2024) | | 0.01 → 0.03 | | |
| Neston Rec | 15 trees (Jun 2024) | | 0.12 → 0.18 | 15 | |
| Neston Rec | 20 fruit trees (Dec 2024) | | 0.16 → 0.24 | 20 | |
| Neston Rec | 3 nut trees (Jan 2025) | | 0.02 → 0.04 | 3 | |
| Neston Rec | 8 trees (Jan 2025) | | 0.06 → 0.10 | 8 | |
| Neston Rec | 75m² hedge (Feb 2025) | | 0.08 | | 75 |
| Little Play Park | 20 fruit trees (Dec 2024) | | 0.16 → 0.20 | 20 | |
| Park Lane Allotments | Trees (Mar 2025) | | 0.06 → 0.07 | 7 | |
| Park Lane Allotments | Hedge (Mar 2025) | | 0.03 | | 30 |
| Newlands Road | 75m² hedge (Mar 2025) | | 0.08 | | 75 |
**Total projected offset in 2030:**
- **CO2:** 5.04 tonnes
- **Trees:** 353
- **Hedge:** 590 m²
---
## Metrics
- **Small tree:** 6–10 kg CO2/year
- **Mature tree:** 21 kg CO2/year
- **Short hedge:** 15 tonnes/hectare
---
## Community Engagement
- Active Travel
- Bus Group
---
## Running an ECO Fair
### Planning:
- Location Permissions
- Logistics
- Resources
### Participants & Activities:
- Activities & Giveaways
- Promotion
---
## Feedback
> “Thank you for letting us join you at the Eco Fair in April. Luke had a great day. We hope to attend again next year.”
> — *Emily Jeans, Wiltshire Wildlife Trust*
> “Event was well organised... Gazebo and table were ready for us... Can’t think of anything extra they could have done.”
> — *Glynis Cosgrave, Wiltshire Scrapstore*
> “A fantastic day - beautifully organised and a pleasure to attend… especially the chaps who carried my products back to my car.”
> — *Jude Lewis*Speech-to-text (for AI search engine):
136 00:18:37.640 --> 00:18:43.760 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration, Bembridge: and we've got the witching hour of 12. 0 5. So Gary, would you like to go ahead? Please.
137 00:18:44.000 --> 00:18:45.630 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Yep, sure. Thank you very much, Graham.
138 00:18:46.735 --> 00:18:48.024 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Welcome everybody.
139 00:18:49.060 --> 00:18:56.840 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: my name is Gary Ford. I'm the Environmental Project officer for Corsham town council. So just like to talk to you a little bit today
140 00:18:57.040 --> 00:18:59.420 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: about what we're doing in Corsham
141 00:18:59.810 --> 00:19:03.084 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: in terms of our environmental activities.
142 00:19:03.750 --> 00:19:12.860 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: with the Town council and with the community, and specifically about an Eco fair that we run every year, and we have just last weekend run
143 00:19:12.980 --> 00:19:16.929 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: the the Eco Fair for this year. So a little bit more about
144 00:19:17.330 --> 00:19:21.949 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: running an Eco fair, and and a bit of feedback about what we've just been doing.
145 00:19:23.280 --> 00:19:26.302 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So to begin with
146 00:19:27.080 --> 00:19:33.609 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: where exactly is Corsham. I grew up in South Somerset, and I had absolutely no idea where Corsham is until I came to start working here.
147 00:19:33.730 --> 00:19:40.850 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So Corsham is in North Wiltshire. It's halfway. Well, it's kind of between Swindon and between Bath.
148 00:19:41.407 --> 00:19:52.040 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Apparently some people refer to Corsham as Little Bath. I can only assume those are people who've never been to Bath or actually been to Corsham, because it's nothing like Bath, I think. But there you go.
149 00:19:52.410 --> 00:20:08.510 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: And what? Exactly. So, yeah. So we're in North Wiltshire, like I said. And we're very much on the border of the Cotswolds. So if you just go out of Corsham. It's like one step out of Corsham. You're into the Cotswolds. So the Cotswolds border right onto the parish of Corsham.
150 00:20:08.980 --> 00:20:10.650 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: And this is where we are.
151 00:20:11.310 --> 00:20:17.619 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: We are so what is Corsham famous for, you know. So what is Corsham about?
152 00:20:17.810 --> 00:20:27.490 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Well, peacocks? Mainly so. If you come to Corsham, you will find these birds walking around pretty much everywhere. They they feel like they own the place. To be honest with you.
153 00:20:28.087 --> 00:20:35.830 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: If you come to Corsham, and you don't see a peacock. You're either very lucky or very unlucky, depending on your thoughts and feelings about peacocks.
154 00:20:36.530 --> 00:20:39.670 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: We are also a famous film location.
155 00:20:40.160 --> 00:20:44.339 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So, for example. This is Poldock, which was filmed here.
156 00:20:44.790 --> 00:20:50.299 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: A few years ago, of course, and the building in the background there is actually the Town Hall building.
157 00:20:50.430 --> 00:20:54.419 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: so apparently corshroom is a very good substitute for 18th century Cornwall.
158 00:20:55.320 --> 00:21:06.740 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: And very recently we've actually had the TV program. The rivals filmed here. This was last year that they filmed this TV show called The Rivals. So apparently Corsham is also a great substitute for the 19 eighties.
159 00:21:09.309 --> 00:21:18.300 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So a little bit more about Corsham town council. So we're a parish of about 15,000 people. We're a market town with surrounding villages.
160 00:21:18.750 --> 00:21:25.100 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: We have 18 councillors, although we're about to lose a couple next week due to election, because a few are standing down.
161 00:21:26.497 --> 00:21:30.400 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: We have 16 staff as a town council
162 00:21:30.570 --> 00:21:43.149 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: makes a a mix of full time staff and part-time staff. We have kind of like 2 groups. There's the groups that's in the office, and then we have a grounds team that go out and look after after all the outdoor spaces that we that we manage.
163 00:21:44.060 --> 00:21:54.299 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: In 2019 the Town Council declared a climate emergency which led to the position of my role. Sorry the the hiring of my role, for example.
164 00:21:54.400 --> 00:22:00.409 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: and the activities that we're. I'm gonna explain a bit more in this presentation.
165 00:22:01.150 --> 00:22:08.399 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: And we aim as a town council to be net 0 by 2030.
166 00:22:08.480 --> 00:22:33.419 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: And I just want to be clear that it's only the town council that we're looking to be net 0 by 2030. We have got no kind of delusions to make Corsham itself net 0 by 2030. We don't have the resources. We don't have the authority to make the parish net 0 by 2030, but we can do that for the town council. So that is what our primary aim is in terms of like responding to the climate emergency.
167 00:22:34.100 --> 00:22:41.640 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So in order to get to net 0 by 2030, we actually need to know what our carbon emissions are.
168 00:22:41.840 --> 00:22:44.559 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: where they're coming from, how big they are
169 00:22:44.700 --> 00:22:57.579 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: in order to come up with a plan of how we're going to tackle them. So every year we commission a bunch of consultants to give us a carbon report, and they produce this very nice little table for us, as well as a wider report
170 00:22:57.700 --> 00:23:01.659 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: on our carbon emissions across all of our
171 00:23:01.980 --> 00:23:08.939 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: categories of, you know, our scopes. So scope 1, 2, and 3. Originally we didn't include
172 00:23:09.120 --> 00:23:19.929 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: scope 3 in our calculations. But we've done that for the last couple of years. So we've had to kind of reset the baseline a little bit. The last couple of years, when we included scope 3. So scope 3 is kind of like
173 00:23:20.400 --> 00:23:29.619 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: all the kind of goods and services that we buy in scope. One is our direct emissions and scope 2 is like electricity and energy that we that we that we bring in.
174 00:23:30.050 --> 00:23:32.100 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: If anybody didn't know what scopes were.
175 00:23:32.540 --> 00:23:42.350 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So this is our annual one, and we're just about to create the one for last year. So we're just at the moment. My job is to kind of gather all the data together
176 00:23:42.500 --> 00:23:48.509 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: that we collect to produce this report. Send it off to the consultants for them to turn it into a nice table like I said
177 00:23:48.670 --> 00:23:52.590 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: so at the moment, for last year our
178 00:23:52.790 --> 00:24:08.540 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: total emissions were about 30 tons for the town council, and we see we think that that's a manageable amount to get to net 0 by 2030. It's going to be quite a challenge, but it's not an overwhelming challenge. It's something that we think we can manage.
179 00:24:08.780 --> 00:24:29.179 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: and our biggest emissions is gas. We have too much gas, apparently, and this is what we use to heat the Town Hall building, which is a big, lovely old building, very leaky, and so it takes a lot of energy to heat it up, and we have quite a lot of carbon emissions so tackling that will be one of our main challenges going forward.
180 00:24:31.086 --> 00:24:38.960 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So from the the from our carbon footprint report we then have to look at like
181 00:24:39.090 --> 00:24:43.380 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: creating our climate action plan. But how we're going to tackle those
182 00:24:43.810 --> 00:25:10.870 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: carbon emissions. And also we'd also like to engage with the wider community. So as well. So we're going to do a climate action plan that not only just focuses on tackling our climate emissions, but also focuses on engaging with the community to help them to respond to these crisis of climate change and also biodiversity loss that we're currently facing. So we have a climate action plan
183 00:25:11.100 --> 00:25:14.520 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: has 50 activities in it at the moment.
184 00:25:16.090 --> 00:25:25.260 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: the plan is kind of split between items that are kind of grayed out, which are specifically about tackling the Town Council's climate missions
185 00:25:25.390 --> 00:25:30.560 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: and ones that aren't grayed out, which are more kind of like general environmental
186 00:25:31.040 --> 00:25:42.330 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: or actions that we're doing, either tackling the community with the community, or just generally helping the environment that aren't directly related to the Town Council's climate missions.
187 00:25:42.880 --> 00:25:50.850 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: The problem I always had with climate action plans is, it's very, very difficult to see usually
188 00:25:51.180 --> 00:26:02.969 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: what progress you're making, and whether that progress is actually on track to where you need to be or not. I've looked at lots of climate action plans, and they're very good at saying what they've done and what they've achieved.
189 00:26:03.010 --> 00:26:22.369 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: But it's quite difficult sometimes to see whether or not that's actually what they were supposed to achieve. So, for example, you know, you'll see one where someone will say we've installed a thousand solar panels, and you go. Oh, well, that's great! But you don't know if they were planning to have actually installed 10,000 solar panels or 100 solar panels. So you don't know if it's actually that great or not.
190 00:26:22.660 --> 00:26:28.320 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So what I'm trying to do with ours is try to include as much information
191 00:26:29.010 --> 00:26:35.560 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: against each of the actions to actually show where we think we are compared to where we need to be.
192 00:26:35.690 --> 00:26:41.360 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: And we're also using the rag system. Of course, the red and the green. So red is we.
193 00:26:41.640 --> 00:26:43.370 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: We're nowhere near on track.
194 00:26:43.780 --> 00:26:58.520 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Green is. We think we're on track, and we're going to achieve what we're going to achieve. And amber is where we're working on something. But we're not sure if we are going to actually achieve what we're trying to achieve. Or if we think we're, we're probably not going to achieve it.
195 00:26:59.020 --> 00:27:04.119 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So I've just got some examples. I pulled from our climate action plan on the screen.
196 00:27:04.280 --> 00:27:07.679 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So the Town Hall is the biggest source of our emissions.
197 00:27:08.030 --> 00:27:10.490 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So for 2324,
198 00:27:10.600 --> 00:27:16.300 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: the emissions totaled 16 tons with all of our energy use in the Town hall.
199 00:27:16.520 --> 00:27:31.980 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: and we're trying to get that down to 12 tons for this year, 4 tons by 2027, and one tonne by 2030, which is a major major. Ask? That's why this is amber working. We're working very hard on it, but whether we'll achieve it or not is still very much up in the air.
200 00:27:32.480 --> 00:27:35.908 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: and what we've done very recently is what we've done is
201 00:27:36.360 --> 00:27:42.540 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: We've installed secondary glazing for all of the Town Hall windows last year.
202 00:27:43.120 --> 00:27:51.379 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Now, since we've done that, our energy use has actually gone up. So that's a bit of a head scratcher that we've we're kind of like trying to still work out what is going on there.
203 00:27:51.680 --> 00:27:54.999 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So even when you do make these changes, it's not
204 00:27:55.350 --> 00:28:04.519 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: necessarily going to result in the carbon savings that you expect. So this is also, like, you know, part of the challenge that we're facing. So we've installed all this lovely double glazing.
205 00:28:04.740 --> 00:28:08.699 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: And then we used more energy during last winter than we did in the previous one.
206 00:28:09.750 --> 00:28:10.570 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: But
207 00:28:10.690 --> 00:28:27.880 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: I have to say that, you know there are a lot of other benefits we've been getting. So, for example, we're now a much quieter building, so we're not getting so much outside noise. So especially this time of the year when the peacocks are in their mating season, they're being incredibly noisy. So it's a bit more quieter now that we've got our double glazing installed.
208 00:28:28.000 --> 00:28:34.749 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: and if you ever heard a noisy mating peacock, it sounds a bit like an air horn crossed with a kazoo. It's an incredible noise.
209 00:28:36.030 --> 00:28:40.019 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So yep. So that's the steps we're taking for the Town Hall.
210 00:28:40.863 --> 00:28:56.990 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: One more positive one is replacing all the ground staff leak with electric vehicles. We have 4 vehicles. We have currently 2 electric vehicles and 2 non vehicles. We changed one last year my plan to change another one this year, so that targets green. We we
211 00:28:57.220 --> 00:29:00.260 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: we, we definitely think we're going to be on track to achieving
212 00:29:00.390 --> 00:29:03.299 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: 4 electric full electric vehicles for the grounds team
213 00:29:03.900 --> 00:29:06.860 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: by 2028, but definitely by 2030.
214 00:29:07.480 --> 00:29:11.523 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So one that's red, for example, is working with the community. We
215 00:29:11.960 --> 00:29:17.050 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: we looking to give grants to local community groups to help them in their
216 00:29:17.350 --> 00:29:31.340 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: activities towards being more environmentally friendly, to helping the parish to be more environmentally friendly and to tackle climate change. But we do struggle to actually engage with local community groups in terms of giving out money
217 00:29:31.610 --> 00:29:42.300 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: because I don't know what the reason is. Maybe they've already got too much money that they don't want anymore. I don't know. But anyway, we really really struggle to connect with them, and we keep offering them money, and they they keep turning us down.
218 00:29:44.440 --> 00:29:47.680 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: I think one of the problems is they have to kind of like match fund it.
219 00:29:48.308 --> 00:30:04.319 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So they they think maybe that's a bit difficult for them to match fund any money that we give to. And it's not a huge amount of money. Anyway. We're talking like hundreds of pounds that we're that we're looking to to help support local groups. But we'll keep plugging away and keep trying to promote it and see. And hopefully we'll
220 00:30:04.790 --> 00:30:13.330 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: we'll start to to get some money out into the community to help them to like tackle climate and biodiversity issues.
221 00:30:13.730 --> 00:30:17.390 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: And another activity that we do, and a little bit more about this
222 00:30:17.760 --> 00:30:22.049 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: later on is, we hold like, I said, the annual Corsham, Eco, fair.
223 00:30:22.750 --> 00:30:27.169 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: And this is on target. We've held one every year for about 4 or 5 years now.
224 00:30:27.782 --> 00:30:40.059 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: The 1st couple were help run by my predecessor, and I just run the last 2. So I ran the one last year, which was my 1st one, and we like, I said we just held one last weekend, which was my my second one
225 00:30:42.520 --> 00:30:56.399 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: as well as a climate Action Plan. We also have a biodiversity Action Plan. Although the picture there, there's not much action happening because we we like to take a break every now and again from all the hard work, especially when the weather's like this.
226 00:30:57.228 --> 00:31:09.389 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So we're also looking to tackle the the nature crisis as well as tackling the the climate crisis. So we have a biodiversity action Plan, which was produced for us a few years ago by some consultants.
227 00:31:09.570 --> 00:31:14.869 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: And what we've done is taken that biodiversity action report that they gave us.
228 00:31:15.060 --> 00:31:17.960 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: And we've created 10 objectives from it.
229 00:31:18.840 --> 00:31:19.910 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: We're not
230 00:31:20.210 --> 00:31:26.330 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: monitoring biodiversity and Corsham. We don't have the resources. We don't have the skills to do that kind of thing.
231 00:31:26.680 --> 00:31:32.619 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So all we can do, I feel is have objectives to deliver
232 00:31:33.270 --> 00:31:53.499 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: more kind of like activities that we think would result in more diverse biodiversity for preCorsham. So, for example, planting more trees, putting in some wildflower ponds that kind of thing. So we think if we achieve these 10 objectives, then that will aid biodiversity in Corsham.
233 00:31:53.640 --> 00:31:59.359 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: And this will mean that we have delivered in effect, our biodiversity action plan.
234 00:31:59.660 --> 00:32:08.469 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: And we're we're kind of progressing with it. We are doing quite a lot of activities. And this is fantastic community engagement that we're doing here.
235 00:32:08.670 --> 00:32:20.350 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So it's a great opportunity to engage with just volunteers, but also with local organizations as well. So in the top left hand picture as I'm looking at it, we've got like a dead hedge there
236 00:32:20.590 --> 00:32:24.380 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: that the volunteers are helping us to put together in our nature area.
237 00:32:24.580 --> 00:32:31.590 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Next, that we've got some people in high vis vests. That is a group planting a community orchard for us.
238 00:32:31.690 --> 00:32:37.360 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: and that fruit there is from a local food press processing company.
239 00:32:37.860 --> 00:32:43.599 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: and they actually paid for the trees for us, and then planted them for us. So that was fantastic. That was great.
240 00:32:43.720 --> 00:33:02.559 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: And we've got lots of other organizations like the MoD local businesses that we connect with and offer them volunteer days with us, so we can take them out and help deliver some of these biodiversity activities that we do. So it's a great way of kind of engaging with the community connecting with the community
241 00:33:02.790 --> 00:33:21.420 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: and and doing lots of good activities that really benefit people. They get them outside doing positive things, helping to support nature. It's all great kind of like social activities. And like, I say, we stop for tea and coffee as well. So everybody has a good chat and that kind of thing, and
242 00:33:21.720 --> 00:33:28.699 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: and people hopefully really enjoy it. So in there, we've also got a picture of a hedge planting activity that we did
243 00:33:29.210 --> 00:33:35.990 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: last week. We just finished off digging our 1st wildlife pond. So there's a photo there of us as digging away.
244 00:33:36.210 --> 00:33:54.049 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: And also we do things like we manage our wildflower areas and help to promote and improve them. And there's a picture there of us helping to rake up the wildflower area. And that's a very rare photo, because it actually has one of me doing something where, normally, I'm just too busy organizing to actually get stuck in and help
245 00:33:55.268 --> 00:34:00.050 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: and also as another aspect to this biodiversity work that we do
246 00:34:00.150 --> 00:34:23.529 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: is by planting all these trees and hedges. We're actually offsetting our carbon emissions. And we think that the way we're going that by 2030 we'll plant enough trees and hedges to offset about 5 tons of our local carbon emissions. And this is essential if we are actually going to get to net 0 as a town council.
247 00:34:24.679 --> 00:34:30.419 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: And so we're tracking this by having a stock taking list.
248 00:34:30.620 --> 00:34:41.229 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So we have a spreadsheet where we're tracking all of the trees we've planted all of the hedgerows we planted. We're calculating how much carbon all of these activities are absorbing
249 00:34:41.449 --> 00:34:45.630 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: and how much they'll continue to absorb up until 2030.
250 00:34:46.010 --> 00:34:56.399 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: And what we'll do is we'll constantly monitor to make sure the trees are all still there. They're all still healthy. The hedges are all still there and healthy. We'll replace any that go missing through, you know.
251 00:34:56.560 --> 00:35:08.040 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: just through kind of like they die off, or just damage, or whatever. And of course we're going to be adding to this list as time continues, we're not going to just say, Okay, we've planted enough to get to 5 tons.
252 00:35:08.270 --> 00:35:24.299 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: That's our target. We're just going to carry on every year, adding more and more where we have space, and we see the opportunity. So this list will increase. So at the moment we think we're going to hit 5 tons by 2030, but we'll probably exceed that quite significantly by time. We do actually get to 2030.
253 00:35:25.100 --> 00:35:27.039 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So that's another thing that we're doing.
254 00:35:27.700 --> 00:35:31.279 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: And like, I said, there's the 5 tons there at the bottom of the spreadsheet
255 00:35:31.640 --> 00:35:34.049 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: by 2030 that we think we're going to hit.
256 00:35:35.360 --> 00:35:44.000 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So we tracking this with. So here's a handy graph that shows where we are when we get to net 0. So we take the report, the carbon report every year.
257 00:35:45.126 --> 00:35:46.140 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: And our
258 00:35:46.670 --> 00:35:56.449 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: biodiversity activities. And that's and gives us an actual actual amount of carbon that we're emitting net carbon that we're emitting as a town council. Each year
259 00:35:56.740 --> 00:35:59.720 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: we have a target that we're basing on the
260 00:36:00.050 --> 00:36:11.269 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: on the carbon report that we get every every year, plus where we think we need to be every year between now and 2030 to get to net 0. See, these are targets that we're looking to hit
261 00:36:11.787 --> 00:36:22.249 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: at the moment we're saying that we're doing pretty well that we're actually ahead of our target. But we know full well that you know, it's gonna get much, much harder going forward.
262 00:36:22.400 --> 00:36:27.069 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: because every carbon we're going to save from now on is going to be much harder to save
263 00:36:27.734 --> 00:36:37.409 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: so whether we get there by 2030 or not is still, I think, up up in the air, but the moment so far we think we're pretty much where we need to be.
264 00:36:37.780 --> 00:36:48.680 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: there's going to be some big changes that need to happen the next few years. In a very short period of time. We need to do some major decarbonizing of the Town Hall. We need to get rid of the gas boilers, for example.
265 00:36:49.000 --> 00:36:53.850 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: these things are in our hands, but whether or not we can get funding to make it happen or not is still.
266 00:36:54.270 --> 00:36:56.249 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: you know, that's uncertain.
267 00:36:56.680 --> 00:37:18.479 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: and there are other things that are not in our hands. So, for example, you know, we can encourage Staff to move to electric vehicles, but we can't force anybody to to change from their petrol vehicle to electric vehicle. So in order to hit our commuting reduction targets. We're going to be relying on staff, naturally progressing to to lower carbon forms of transport.
268 00:37:18.610 --> 00:37:26.600 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So those are things that are out of our hands. But we're we're hoping that we're going to be able to to deliver as well like, I say, at the moment, so far
269 00:37:26.720 --> 00:37:28.189 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: we think we're pretty good.
270 00:37:28.960 --> 00:37:37.380 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So, apart from tackling the town council, like, I say, we'd like to engage with our community.
271 00:37:37.750 --> 00:37:41.099 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: and we're looking to engage in our community in a number of ways.
272 00:37:41.520 --> 00:37:45.630 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So, for example, we have an active travel group that we help run
273 00:37:47.200 --> 00:37:55.439 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: the active travel group like to talk a lot about active travel. And, boy, do they like to talk a lot about active travel? But every now and again we actually do do something.
274 00:37:55.600 --> 00:38:03.299 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So next month, yeah, I'm just saying we're not in May yet. So next month we're looking to have our 1st Corsham. Family bike ride.
275 00:38:03.630 --> 00:38:12.459 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So what we're looking to do is, do a guided bike. Ride around Corsham with family groups, with old people, young people. Anyone who isn't that
276 00:38:12.650 --> 00:38:15.909 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: kind of confident, potentially on bicycles.
277 00:38:17.215 --> 00:38:18.839 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: To kind of show them
278 00:38:19.030 --> 00:38:36.899 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: where the best routes to cycle around Corsham are to kind of encourage people, to be more on bikes, to do more active travel, maybe leave the car at home, maybe travel to buy bike to school that kind of thing. So we thought we'd try this event. We'd we'd advertise it. See how we get on.
279 00:38:37.050 --> 00:38:51.399 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: We would like to get 50 people, and we've so far sold 60 tickets to this event. So it looks like it's gonna be quite successful. We just hope that the weather's gonna be nice, and all the people that have signed up actually do turn up on the day.
280 00:38:51.590 --> 00:38:55.919 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: But we'll see how it goes. It's our 1st one. So we'll just we're just gonna try it and see
281 00:38:56.869 --> 00:39:18.210 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: we also have a bus group that we look to support, to encourage people to use public transport, to move from cars to lower lower carbon forms of transport. And we just very recently created this bus leaflet to give to people in the community, to help people to kind of like, encourage them to to use buses more.
282 00:39:18.788 --> 00:39:29.929 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: The map on the right is a little bit misleading, because it seems to suggest that Corsham is some kind of like central hub for this major bus network in North Wiltshire, where, in fact.
283 00:39:29.990 --> 00:39:55.349 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: that's not the case. In fact, a lot of those bus routes. You'd be lucky to find a bus once a day on them. But you know anything that shows people that there are bus routes out there, and that people can take buses instead of using the car is hopefully going to encourage people to to do that. And the bus group do other things as well. So the bus group at the moment are looking at improving the timetable. We're looking to add Saturday afternoon services to to the
284 00:39:55.520 --> 00:40:12.090 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: the town bus in Corsham. We're looking to improve the bus stops in Corsham. In fact, we we were just asked by Wiltshire council to do a survey of the bus stops, and to highlight any missing bus stops in Corsham, and we sent them a huge report
285 00:40:12.390 --> 00:40:18.520 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: highlighting like all these missing bus stops where there weren't. As there was no bus stop but people using the bus.
286 00:40:18.730 --> 00:40:25.179 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: And then, a week later, the bus company sent a message out telling people not to to get on buses where there weren't bus stops.
287 00:40:25.290 --> 00:40:27.270 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So obviously, we're having an impact there.
288 00:40:28.290 --> 00:40:40.629 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: And we're also looking to introduce electronic bus signs in our main bus stops on the in the town center as well. So there's there's quite a few activities that the bus group are going doing. And that's quite a new group that's got set up about a year ago.
289 00:40:40.770 --> 00:40:42.610 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: And they're being very
290 00:40:43.240 --> 00:40:50.050 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: productive and very successful, I think, in in improving and promoting bus services around Corsham.
291 00:40:51.410 --> 00:40:59.430 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: And of course we run the Eco fair. So this is an annual event that we run as a town council for the community, and with the community
292 00:40:59.790 --> 00:41:03.369 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: to kind of help, encourage the community to be more
293 00:41:03.600 --> 00:41:07.009 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: environmentally friendly, and to consider the environment more.
294 00:41:07.624 --> 00:41:11.170 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: And like, I said, we just held it last weekend.
295 00:41:11.812 --> 00:41:21.519 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: We got a bit lucky because it started raining exactly at 10 o'clock in the morning when the fair started, but I lasted 2 min, and then the sun came out. So it was. It was great.
296 00:41:22.000 --> 00:41:26.300 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So to run an Eco fair. What did we? What do we do? How do we do it?
297 00:41:26.460 --> 00:41:29.150 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: 1st of all, we need to find a location for it.
298 00:41:29.690 --> 00:41:35.449 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: We're very fortunate that we're in a town, so we don't have to have it in a in a muddy field like a Glastonbury.
299 00:41:35.660 --> 00:41:40.320 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: so we tend to hold it in 3 locations. We hold it in the town.
300 00:41:40.580 --> 00:41:44.150 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: the main High Street, which is a pedestrian area of the High Street.
301 00:41:44.270 --> 00:41:47.520 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: We hold it in a car park of the local business hub.
302 00:41:47.710 --> 00:41:57.780 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: and we also hold it at the local art center, the pound art center as well. So we've got 3 locations that we can use for running an eco fair
303 00:41:58.791 --> 00:42:21.040 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: permissions to hold of eco fare. You need to get permissions. Unfortunately, you can't just go off and run it yourself, so you need to go and talk to the local police. You have to go talk to Wiltshire Council in our case, because Wiltshire Council won't let you hold events without them knowing about them, and and saying that you can have them even if they're in your town, and they never get involved. But there you go.
304 00:42:21.290 --> 00:42:21.890 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So
305 00:42:22.600 --> 00:42:36.120 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: you have to get permissions and also permissions for people in the area that where you're using their infrastructure. Or if you're kind of like using areas that they use as well. So like, for example, the business hub to use the car park and the pounds art center
306 00:42:36.310 --> 00:42:37.739 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: as a location.
307 00:42:38.210 --> 00:42:45.489 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So logistics like, I said, you need also need some logistics as well to sort out, so you might need some extra toilets. Probably not that one.
308 00:42:45.550 --> 00:43:12.010 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: But you need some extra toilets. You might need some medical staff to look after visitors, and you might also need things like bins, etc. Although we don't have bins because we look to kind of minimize waste because it's an Eco fair. So I keep saying like no bins, no free parking that kind of thing. But logistics is something you need to consider as well. And then, finally, you need resources. You need the resources to run the fair.
309 00:43:12.540 --> 00:43:13.980 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So in our case.
310 00:43:14.440 --> 00:43:34.080 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: we have. You need a lot of people to help organize it to begin with, and you need people on the day to look after stallholders, to look after people, to look, to run events and activities. So we rely very much on our staff here and our town councillors to provide the people resources we need, and you need money as well.
311 00:43:34.717 --> 00:43:42.040 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Our ecofare costs several 1,000 pounds to run, to organize and to deliver, and
312 00:43:42.180 --> 00:43:54.540 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: we get a little bit of money back from some of the stallholders that sell goods, but it's it's a nominal amount. So so you know, it does cost town Council a a couple of 1,000 pounds at least. But you know you can
313 00:43:54.990 --> 00:43:59.290 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: make these things as big and small, whatever your budget is to fit the budget you have.
314 00:44:00.420 --> 00:44:06.609 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So once you've got all that sorted you, of course you need people to come and participate at your Eco fair.
315 00:44:07.130 --> 00:44:12.090 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So what we do is we go out to stallholders.
316 00:44:12.800 --> 00:44:23.029 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: people who maybe have participated in other events that we run like, say, the street fair, or the local fates or something, and we approach them. If they've got an
317 00:44:23.720 --> 00:44:30.330 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: environmental criteria to what they do, they use natural goods, or they sell natural products, that kind of thing.
318 00:44:30.985 --> 00:44:44.509 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So we go to them. And we try local nature groups or other other kind of organizations in the area that have an environmentally friendly kind of like aspect to them. So, for example, we, we.
319 00:44:44.960 --> 00:45:01.768 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: we contact the local, the Brunel shed who have helped make bird and bat boxes for us, so they they would participate. Fair trade, which is scrap store. Anybody we can think of. We just put the word out there. See who applies. We check their criteria to see whether or not they actually
320 00:45:02.600 --> 00:45:17.400 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: meet the criteria of of being part of the Eco fair. And then we we send them a a form to fill out, and they fill it back, they fill it in, send it back into us, and we then allocate them. Space the at the Eco fair. So we get
321 00:45:18.190 --> 00:45:25.599 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: participants. We had about 20 store holders in total this year, which is about as many as we can manage, so. So we had a good turnout
322 00:45:26.371 --> 00:45:36.909 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: as well as participants. We look to kind of organize a few activities and giveaways to kind of encourage people to to come to the Eco fair as well for other things, not just to
323 00:45:37.020 --> 00:45:45.220 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: just because there's stalls there giving it environmental information or or selling environmental goods. We try to give some family activities as well.
324 00:45:45.680 --> 00:45:54.230 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So what we did this year is at the art center. We had a whole range of kind of like arts and craft activities with some local artists.
325 00:45:54.700 --> 00:45:58.809 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: We also provided some bird boxes for
326 00:45:58.970 --> 00:46:06.569 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: families to decorate. So the children painted the bird boxes for us, and then we'll take those bird boxes, and we're going to put them up around
327 00:46:07.580 --> 00:46:12.240 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: the parish, and we also gave away packs of free seeds.
328 00:46:12.540 --> 00:46:18.900 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: There was a repair cafe. Sorry, free wildflower seeds for people to take away and put in their garden, or or wherever
329 00:46:19.350 --> 00:46:26.290 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: and quite randomly. This year we actually had. We were given hundreds and hundreds of free towels.
330 00:46:26.550 --> 00:46:29.869 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: because we've got quite a good connection with a local
331 00:46:30.670 --> 00:46:33.610 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Major Laundrette, that services all of the
332 00:46:35.550 --> 00:46:48.870 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: all the big hotels around around the area, and they had all these towels that were going spare because they were doing a changeover. And they said, Would you like some towels. And we said, Yeah, great. You know, we'll give them reuse, recycle that kind of message at the Eco fair. That'd be great.
333 00:46:49.130 --> 00:46:56.460 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: And they turned up with 4 of these massive cages of them, and in fact, we had to turn 2 more down because we just didn't have space for them.
334 00:46:56.940 --> 00:47:02.799 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So we had free towels this this time. So it's kind of a random thing that we were doing this year at the Eco Fair.
335 00:47:03.200 --> 00:47:12.530 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: One of the things we did last year was we showed at the at the art Center. We showed a whole load of like eco films, so like a little montage of these short eco films.
336 00:47:13.640 --> 00:47:20.840 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: and we got the local schools to also create some eco films for us as well to share. And we're going to show you a video
337 00:47:20.970 --> 00:47:35.139 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: that one of them produced. Now, I'm aware that when you show videos on these zoom kind of like calls, there's always like a hit and miss whether the sound actually works, or if the video actually plays or not. So we'll have to bear with me if it works or not. So I'm gonna try it.
338 00:47:35.290 --> 00:47:51.350 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: The video comes with subtitles. So if anybody struggles, I mean, the sound kind of goes up and down a bit, anyway, even even when it works properly. But if anybody struggles with the wheelchair accent, don't worry. There's subtitles. So it should be okay for you.
339 00:50:45.190 --> 00:50:47.419 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Hopefully, the sound worked okay for everyone there.
340 00:50:48.492 --> 00:51:02.650 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Yeah. So that's what we did last year. We did all these ecofilms. We should have done that again this year because we had a better space in the town in the art center to to show the films, but it was a bit of a faff doing it last year, so I kind of like
341 00:51:03.190 --> 00:51:12.470 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: stepped away from it a bit this year. Didn't think about it. So once you've got everything all lined up, the next thing you need to do is you need to promote your Eco fair. So we do this.
342 00:51:12.650 --> 00:51:21.209 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: However, we can really. I mean, we send it out to email groups. We talk to local businesses. We use social media.
343 00:51:21.450 --> 00:51:40.570 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: We put posters up everywhere that we can think of in shop windows around town and anything we can do to get the message out to kind of like, tell people what's going on, and just to encourage them to come into the town for the day and to come and visit the stalls, hear about the environmental work, talk to people.
344 00:51:40.700 --> 00:51:43.220 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: take part in the activities, that kind of thing.
345 00:51:43.420 --> 00:51:52.059 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: And there's just a sample of the posters that we created, and that we shared with our community to to get people to come along to the Eco fair.
346 00:51:52.540 --> 00:52:07.489 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: and these are some photos from the day itself that we had last. Like, I say, on Saturday it was very successful. We had a really good turnout. Lots of people, lots of good feedback from people as well on the day.
347 00:52:07.869 --> 00:52:14.579 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So yeah, all in all, I think it was another big, successful event that we run. That was a real benefit to the town.
348 00:52:15.122 --> 00:52:22.329 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: To the town of Corsham brought a lot of people into the area as well to come and see a little bit more about the town, as well as just visiting the Eco. Fair.
349 00:52:23.290 --> 00:52:31.990 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So feedback. We got some feedback from last year. It's always good to get some good feedback to see what it is that you've done. That's that worked, and
350 00:52:32.540 --> 00:52:58.869 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: to kind of gauge how successful the Eco fair was we should really do a lot more of this. We should probably talk to a lot more with the community about. You know what their thoughts are and feelings are when it comes to environmental work and get some some feedback that way, but still kind of struggling with that aspect a little bit, but it's always good to get some good feedback, and also anything where we think that there needs to be improvements going forward to how to deliver this fair
351 00:52:59.120 --> 00:53:22.969 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: that would have more of an impact. Maybe because I think it's great for the town. And it's great activities. And it's really great for the participants and the people that that come along and and enjoy it. But how much of a kind of like a, you know impact having from an environmental point of view. It's that's very hard to gauge, I think. But but as long as it's being successful, then it's then it's a good thing.
352 00:53:23.771 --> 00:53:30.240 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: And that's it. So basically, if anybody has any questions and I shall stop sharing.
353 00:53:31.810 --> 00:53:54.209 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration, Bembridge: Gary, that was very uplifting. Thank you very much. A lot of people I know are asking, how on earth do we get started? And clearly, you guys have got yourselves well on the path. I do have one question which occurred to me. You did a wonderful job of relating how you a set out your targets and B track. How well you're doing towards them!
354 00:53:54.280 --> 00:54:05.350 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration, Bembridge: But where do you get your figures from for calculating the carbon reduction that you've got from the trees you've planted, and your orchards, and so forth. I saw something referring to the knee bone trees. But
355 00:54:05.450 --> 00:54:08.389 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration, Bembridge: I've looked at their website and didn't see anything there.
356 00:54:08.740 --> 00:54:15.970 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Yeah, it's basically online Graham. I just, I just kept searching online to find what I thought were reasonable
357 00:54:16.380 --> 00:54:25.690 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: numbers in terms of carbon savings. And it it turns it tends to work out about 10 kg per tree for like a medium sized tree.
358 00:54:27.710 --> 00:54:36.169 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: and yeah, I've just looked online for, like, you know, for hedgerows and trees to get some kind of like bigger that sounded plausible.
359 00:54:37.085 --> 00:54:42.040 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: That we could use as a realistic, and one that we could then say to people, Well, this is how we're we're
360 00:54:42.340 --> 00:54:44.440 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: we're basing our calculations on.
361 00:54:44.560 --> 00:54:54.129 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: And people would say it not turn around and say, well, that's absolutely rubbish. That's not like not unrealistic or whatever. And and like, I said, having us having a source that you could quote as well.
362 00:54:54.680 --> 00:54:56.930 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So I could. I can share you the link.
363 00:54:57.100 --> 00:55:06.300 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: if I could, if I could still find it, of where we got those those numbers from. But they don't. They do tend to be the the same numbers that drop up. If you just Google, how much.
364 00:55:06.300 --> 00:55:21.669 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration, Bembridge: You get a chance to either throw the link into the chat or send it to me afterwards, so I'll get it out. But yeah, thank you. The other question that popped into my head was, you're going to replace the gas boilers in the Town Council building the Town Hall with what.
365 00:55:22.550 --> 00:55:23.939 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Air source heat, pumps.
366 00:55:24.480 --> 00:55:25.090 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration, Bembridge: Right.
367 00:55:25.090 --> 00:55:28.902 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration, Bembridge: That's why I keep asking you about the air source heat pumps
368 00:55:29.677 --> 00:55:36.770 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration, Bembridge: that was fascinating. Thank you. Let me ask if anyone else has got any questions for you.
369 00:55:38.750 --> 00:55:42.000 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration, Bembridge: Stuart, you're always reliable to coming up with something.
370 00:55:44.630 --> 00:55:48.680 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: I I just asked what what sort of air source heat pump you're thinking of.
371 00:55:49.040 --> 00:55:53.670 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: because I I'm I'm trying to do similar with our sort of village hall
372 00:55:54.251 --> 00:55:59.189 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: and I think I'm gonna go with the small air conditioning units.
373 00:56:00.920 --> 00:56:01.330 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Yeah.
374 00:56:01.330 --> 00:56:04.070 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: They will cool as well as heat.
375 00:56:04.070 --> 00:56:09.440 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: Yeah, yeah, I think cooling is going to become more of an issue as time goes on.
376 00:56:09.860 --> 00:56:15.453 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Yeah, yeah, we. I mean, we like everyone. We open the windows and turn on fans when it gets too hot.
377 00:56:15.870 --> 00:56:19.016 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: which is starting to get already this year.
378 00:56:19.900 --> 00:56:26.870 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: we have actually got somebody coming in on Friday from an air source. Heat Comp pump company.
379 00:56:27.797 --> 00:56:44.679 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: We're gonna discuss. And we've had a report done in the past about what kind of air source heat pumps. We're limited, really, in times, in terms of space, even though we're a massive building. We don't own any scrap of land around it. So even if we put it on the back of the building, we're actually encroaching on other people's land.
380 00:56:44.920 --> 00:56:49.159 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So we're kind of very limited. So we're going to this one of the the
381 00:56:49.840 --> 00:57:01.879 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: obstacles that we have to overcome. But we're gonna like, I said. We've got somebody coming in on Friday who we're. We're gonna have a bit of a site visit with and talk to them about and see what they suggest and what the options are.
382 00:57:02.240 --> 00:57:08.960 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: We had a company that did a report for us on decarbonizing the Town Hall
383 00:57:09.440 --> 00:57:11.230 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: a couple of years ago.
384 00:57:11.380 --> 00:57:16.720 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: and they put together some facts and figures for us. And they came to us at the beginning of this year
385 00:57:17.270 --> 00:57:21.089 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: because we were looking to to kind of move on actually start the installation.
386 00:57:21.210 --> 00:57:25.590 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: They quoted us 40,000 pounds just to do the consultation.
387 00:57:26.930 --> 00:57:33.959 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Yeah, exactly. I mean, utterly ridiculous. I mean exchanging the boilers is gonna cost about 10,000 pounds. So
388 00:57:34.500 --> 00:57:35.000 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: so what.
389 00:57:35.000 --> 00:57:38.290 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: Do you have a Dec. For that building?
390 00:57:38.650 --> 00:57:43.339 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: I couldn't tell you. You know it's not my area of expertise.
391 00:57:44.190 --> 00:57:52.320 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: but we will be discussing all of this with the with the the company at the on Friday, and seeing what they they suggest.
392 00:57:53.190 --> 00:58:02.219 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: I I think I'd I'd recommend checking out your Dec. It's a statutory requirement to have on displayed energy certificate.
393 00:58:02.430 --> 00:58:07.806 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: and I gather when you get the certificate, they also advise on
394 00:58:08.440 --> 00:58:12.550 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: measures. You can take to reduce the carbon footprint of the building.
395 00:58:13.600 --> 00:58:16.879 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Yeah, we like, I said, we have. We've had a report done. We've got a report.
396 00:58:17.686 --> 00:58:25.463 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: One of the measures was to install secondary glazing, and the heating bill has gone up.
397 00:58:25.950 --> 00:58:29.690 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: Pro probably quite weather dependent, and use of the building dependent.
398 00:58:29.690 --> 00:58:31.069 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Yeah, but it wasn't that.
399 00:58:31.400 --> 00:58:38.230 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: It wasn't any worse this year than it was last year. Anything. It's probably a bit milder. I think it's just our heating system is so
400 00:58:38.400 --> 00:58:43.320 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: temperamental. It's very difficult to like kind of manage it
401 00:58:43.530 --> 00:58:54.330 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: to see what impacts. But we've I mean, it probably would have been worse, for example, if we hadn't put secondary glazing in. That's 1 way looking at it. And we put in loft installation as well. So that's 2 measures that we've that we've done.
402 00:58:55.180 --> 00:58:56.210 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: Okay. Thanks.
403 00:58:57.990 --> 00:58:59.990 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration, Bembridge: Frank. Over to you, please.
404 00:59:02.940 --> 00:59:14.630 frank deas, killearn: Thanks very much. All very interesting. I wondered. The success you're having in community engagement in the Biodiversity Action Plan, you were saying, doesn't seem to reflect in the Climate Action plan.
405 00:59:14.690 --> 00:59:37.260 frank deas, killearn: but in the biodiversity there seem to be much more projects that are council led that volunteers can participate in and support, with very little need for bureaucracy or engagement, or setting it up themselves. So I wondered whether you look at anything like that on the Climate action plan where the Council can take the lead in an energy retrofit hub information center or
406 00:59:37.540 --> 00:59:46.489 frank deas, killearn: setting up your own repair cafes so that people can get involved without necessarily having to to take that 1st step themselves, or or do a lot of form filling.
407 00:59:47.340 --> 00:59:50.969 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Yeah, that's absolutely right, Frank. And it's it's basically down to me, not
408 00:59:51.310 --> 00:59:54.860 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: progressing it, you know. I mean, I can only manage to do so.
409 00:59:55.325 --> 00:59:55.790 frank deas, killearn: Yeah.
410 00:59:55.790 --> 01:00:10.730 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: But I would say, like, you know, on the community, on the on the climate side. I tend to play it down a little bit. But we are doing a lot. I mean, if you look at like, you know, the active travel groups and the bus groups, and that kind of thing. We are doing a lot of engagement with the community there.
411 01:00:10.970 --> 01:00:15.699 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So we are quite successful, really. And when it comes to energy
412 01:00:15.870 --> 01:00:25.420 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: where it just happens to be a coincidence that at the moment we're looking to run a community energy workshop in July. So Bristol.
413 01:00:26.150 --> 01:00:31.539 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Bristol and West Community Energy Company and Cse community.
414 01:00:31.900 --> 01:00:41.490 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: What does Cse. I can't remember what Cse stands for. But anyway, they, these 2 big groups in the area energy groups in the area want to target Corsham
415 01:00:41.620 --> 01:00:46.250 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: as a potential community energy hotspot, as it were.
416 01:00:46.440 --> 01:00:48.990 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: and they're looking to run a workshop in the Town Hall
417 01:00:49.340 --> 01:01:10.049 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: in in like, say, in early July. So we're gonna now start pushing it out to the community to get the community engaged and stuff. So we're actually it looks like very positive things of happening very, very recently. And they came to us and had a meeting with us last week, and we said like, welcome to the Town Hall. It's a fantastic venue for holding these kind of things. And they said, Oh, yeah, okay.
418 01:01:10.440 --> 01:01:23.660 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: And they've engaged with us to kind of like who to go out to in the community to to start targeting for these schemes. So so we are progressing. Things are moving actually, really, surprisingly, really, right now they're really moving quite fast. So.
419 01:01:23.920 --> 01:01:47.469 frank deas, killearn: That's great. Yeah. The other one I wanted is, I came into this group. Now I'm up in Scotland, so I'm very always grateful that you let me join in I convinced originally because of the green toolkit I wondered whether you're using it or using anything else to try and and gauge. What is the the community uptake, or the individual participation? Is there any tracking tool you're using to try and see right? What are people thinking out there. What's he actually doing.
420 01:01:48.551 --> 01:01:54.720 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: No, we're not tracking at the moment. Impact in terms of people's, you know.
421 01:01:54.720 --> 01:01:55.210 frank deas, killearn: Sunil.
422 01:01:55.210 --> 01:02:04.940 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Concerns about, you know. But things like, yeah, how many volunteers we get, how many events we run, what kind of participation we get? We? We track all that stuff.
423 01:02:05.340 --> 01:02:08.009 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So you know, like, last year we had
424 01:02:08.250 --> 01:02:22.329 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: over 200 volunteers that turned up to our bio biodiversity activities. So we do track at what we can in terms of like the data we have. But in terms of like surveys, surveys, and stuff.
425 01:02:22.590 --> 01:02:39.900 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: We've been doing a lot of surveys recently on active travel and that kind of thing. So we're we don't want to kind of overwhelm the the community with surveys and feedback and all that kind of thing. But we just think like, if we're delivering these things, people are turning up and enjoying them. Then we're then we're making progress.
426 01:02:41.670 --> 01:02:43.966 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration, Bembridge: Very good, Andrew, please.
427 01:02:50.487 --> 01:02:51.402 Andrew Clegg, Box: My audio.
428 01:02:51.980 --> 01:03:09.890 Andrew Clegg, Box: Yeah. Gary, thanks very, very much. That's very helpful. I know Corsham very well, and maybe I should take this opportunity in saying what a wonderful place it is, and if anybody's anywhere near it, please visit. It's 1 of the country's finest little towns, I think.
429 01:03:10.230 --> 01:03:31.640 Andrew Clegg, Box: But, Gary, you've got a lot of new development around, and you have you had any success at all in persuading developers and your planning authority to use higher insulation standards than the absolute minimum that they have to, because we haven't.
430 01:03:32.510 --> 01:03:41.509 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Yeah, yeah. I mean, Wiltshire did the that their local neighborhood plan, recently?
431 01:03:42.072 --> 01:03:52.940 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Consultation last year, where they were, gonna say, like all new housing developments had to be a standard in terms of installation and and renewable energy
432 01:03:53.330 --> 01:03:57.279 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: at the moment in Corsham. There isn't any building going on.
433 01:03:57.610 --> 01:04:17.879 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: We've got no house building going on in Corsham at all, in terms of like anything, Major. There might be a few extensions going up, and maybe a house here or there, but there's no big, there's there's ones being planned, of course, like like everywhere. But at the moment there's no big housing estates actually being built, and there haven't been for like a year or 2,
434 01:04:18.230 --> 01:04:25.430 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: we in our Neighborhood plan. We definitely emphasize it, and we say that. But we don't have the authority to implement it. That's the problem.
435 01:04:25.430 --> 01:04:26.890 Andrew Clegg, Box: Yeah, you know.
436 01:04:27.110 --> 01:04:36.680 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: There's a local retirement building that wants to go up in one of these in one of the areas just on the edge of the of the parish.
437 01:04:36.880 --> 01:04:42.389 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: and we're engaging with them quite a lot, and insisting that they they introduce
438 01:04:42.830 --> 01:05:06.358 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: the best like insulation measures and make it as environmentally friendly as possible, and they're very positive, and they're very responsive in terms of incorporating as much measures as possible. So we're getting lots of positive feedback. But there's nothing actually happening right now that we can point to and say, Oh, yes, this. These houses are being built with all being with solar panels on them, and and
439 01:05:06.820 --> 01:05:13.069 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: and you know, a rated installation, because there's there's actually nothing going on at the moment.
440 01:05:14.140 --> 01:05:24.190 Andrew Clegg, Box: Yeah, yeah. Same story with us. I'm not now talking about Box in particular. I'm talking about Martok down in Somerset, where I've been involved in the Neighborhood plan.
441 01:05:24.660 --> 01:05:29.650 Andrew Clegg, Box: But it's very, very difficult to persuade people to do more than the absolute minimum. That's what we've found.
442 01:05:30.230 --> 01:05:32.369 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Yeah, that's why you need to set the minimum to be
443 01:05:32.680 --> 01:05:34.259 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: like the maximum sort of thing.
444 01:05:34.260 --> 01:05:39.379 Andrew Clegg, Box: The trouble is, the absolute minimum is set by government, and so it was stuck till they raise it.
445 01:05:39.380 --> 01:05:42.460 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: I know they keep saying that they're gonna mandate for like
446 01:05:43.080 --> 01:05:47.169 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: panels on new building and all that kind of stuff, but they just never seem to get around to it. For some reason.
447 01:05:47.170 --> 01:05:48.180 Andrew Clegg, Box: No, that's exactly.
448 01:05:48.180 --> 01:05:48.540 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: You are.
449 01:05:49.430 --> 01:05:51.399 Andrew Clegg, Box: Yeah, thank, you.
450 01:05:52.500 --> 01:05:53.660 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration, Bembridge: Your own piece.
451 01:05:54.719 --> 01:06:02.140 Joanne Stone, Shiplake PC, Oxon: Yes, I know it's not in your remit. But I just wondered, do you have much engagement with the smaller parish councils around you?
452 01:06:04.076 --> 01:06:09.410 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: We try to when I 1st started this job. I've been this job for about 18 months now.
453 01:06:09.580 --> 01:06:15.480 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: I thought there would be quite a lot of interaction, specifically with the county level environment team
454 01:06:15.830 --> 01:06:30.459 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: and with maybe parishes around. And we do do some every now and again. So we had a visit from Cirencester Town Council a few months ago to find out what we're doing here in, and to kind of like idea, share and stuff, and we have
455 01:06:31.114 --> 01:06:34.509 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: liaise a little bit with box as well.
456 01:06:34.670 --> 01:07:04.040 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: But it's very much standalone, you know. There's lots of great stuff being done. There's there's areas like Broome and Bradford on Avon that are kind of like market leaders, as it were, in some of the things that they're doing. And we keep an eye on them. And we look, we look, you know, we contact them if they're doing something that we think sounds really interesting and would work here, but generally we all seem to be our own little kind of islands, you know, tackling our own communities, because, to be honest with you like, you know.
457 01:07:04.590 --> 01:07:11.349 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Tackling. Just Corsham is a big challenge in itself. Liaising with
458 01:07:11.700 --> 01:07:24.300 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: other parish councils might be useful, but but we find that we can kind of track on with it ourselves. And like, say, if there's a chance and opportunity, we do. But generally we just kind of focusing on our own areas.
459 01:07:24.770 --> 01:07:37.370 Joanne Stone, Shiplake PC, Oxon: No, I was just thinking, from the small person's point of view, because we're a very small parish council. Very close to Henley, which obviously is a town. And so I know they have eco fares and all sorts of things, but
460 01:07:37.580 --> 01:07:50.655 Joanne Stone, Shiplake PC, Oxon: you know, as a small parish council, it would be so much easier if we could actually say, Can we, you know, can we be included? Can we sort of have some of your input or your expertise
461 01:07:51.460 --> 01:08:03.950 Joanne Stone, Shiplake PC, Oxon: and it's not always, you know. It's it's I just wondered if you if you had that sort of relationship with some of the smaller councils next to you, not not town councils, but whether they'd actually come to you and said, You know, can you
462 01:08:04.310 --> 01:08:11.640 Joanne Stone, Shiplake PC, Oxon: can we be, you know, have a stall or something, or, you know, try and engage their own people, because obviously, people, their residents probably come
463 01:08:11.770 --> 01:08:13.860 Joanne Stone, Shiplake PC, Oxon: to Corsham them to shop on things.
464 01:08:14.090 --> 01:08:34.280 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Yeah, no, we're always open to helping. And if we get, if anybody contacts us and ask for help absolutely, we'll we'll go out there. I mean, we get contacts from from groups constantly, and we go and go and help them. So, for example, you know, we'll go and give a talk to the Women's Institute. That kind of thing. Local
465 01:08:34.770 --> 01:08:36.769 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: like, you know the villages.
466 01:08:37.793 --> 01:08:43.929 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: We work closely with the councillors, the local villages. So we have a village called Neston
467 01:08:44.486 --> 01:08:48.763 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: we planted a community orchard in Neston very recently, and we put
468 01:08:49.290 --> 01:08:57.120 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: articles into their their monthly newsletter, that kind of thing, and other villages around will will get in
469 01:08:57.290 --> 01:09:03.420 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: touch with them as and when. But if they come to us and ask for help, we absolutely will help them any way we can.
470 01:09:03.609 --> 01:09:27.589 Joanne Stone, Shiplake PC, Oxon: Yeah, no, it's interesting to to know that. Because obviously, we're we haven't got an environment group at the moment. And I was really want to set one up, and that's why I've been coming to these talks. But it's it's just it's just that initial step of trying to sort of put your head above parapet and get people involved. And and obviously, if the local Town council sort of have got that expertise, it might be something that we could. We could sort of.
471 01:09:28.200 --> 01:09:36.799 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Yeah, yeah, I find that I find like, the biodiversity work really helps in that respect. So like, you know, we just have a, we just have an email list of
472 01:09:37.120 --> 01:09:40.850 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: like 80 people. I mean, you, do you always get the same kind of
473 01:09:40.970 --> 01:09:51.160 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: core group that turn up for most activities. But it's just a good way of communicating what you're doing and getting some support for like. And biodiversity activities do tend to get quite a lot of support
474 01:09:51.470 --> 01:10:04.900 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: from right across the the parish, for example, right across the community, just to come along and plant a hedge. That's just so makes the town of the area look nice, that kind of thing. So it's a good way, a good way of getting connections. I think.
475 01:10:04.900 --> 01:10:09.060 Joanne Stone, Shiplake PC, Oxon: I think the trouble that we have is that we don't actually own any land.
476 01:10:09.060 --> 01:10:09.590 Joanne Stone, Shiplake PC, Oxon: Yes.
477 01:10:09.590 --> 01:10:10.690 Joanne Stone, Shiplake PC, Oxon: Well, apart from
478 01:10:10.960 --> 01:10:34.749 Joanne Stone, Shiplake PC, Oxon: one playground and so it's sort of more of a, you know, getting the the locals to to, you know, manage their own land to do it. Even our village hall is actually owned by a memorial trust. So even there we have to, you know, sort of try and influence. But we have no, you know, can't do it directly, so we would love to plant the community orchard or something, but you know we haven't got the land, so it's.
479 01:10:34.750 --> 01:10:35.900 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Well, you could start with a hedges.
480 01:10:35.900 --> 01:10:36.790 Joanne Stone, Shiplake PC, Oxon: Amazing.
481 01:10:36.790 --> 01:10:41.640 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: You can start with a hedge in the play part, because that's what we do. We plant. We plant hedges along the railings
482 01:10:41.750 --> 01:10:44.610 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: of the play parks as a good as a good starter.
483 01:10:44.610 --> 01:11:06.320 Joanne Stone, Shiplake PC, Oxon: We would love to, but unfortunately, out the playground that we've got is totally surrounded by it was included in a housing estate. So it's sort of totally surrounded by the the fences of all the gardens that for some reason I'd love to swap the plot for somebody else, you know, build a house there and buy a plot somewhere else. But that's I'm alone in that view. Okay, thank you.
484 01:11:07.020 --> 01:11:09.910 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration, Bembridge: I could just echo Joanne that what
485 01:11:10.020 --> 01:11:19.820 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration, Bembridge: Gary was saying about the community stuff for the biodiversity in in Long Sutton in Somerset. They really have managed to get hold of a field
486 01:11:20.120 --> 01:11:28.820 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration, Bembridge: which did belong to that was deeded to the parish some time ago, and they've been using as an allotment. And it's now gone to the environmental group.
487 01:11:28.970 --> 01:11:45.839 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration, Bembridge: And the response has been astonishing. And just as Gary's video showed the children getting piling in. You know this, they decided to put one area of the field for a pond and another area for bug houses, and others for bird boxes and all the rest, and and the
488 01:11:46.080 --> 01:11:48.809 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration, Bembridge: effect upon the community is galvanizing.
489 01:11:49.000 --> 01:12:02.339 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration, Bembridge: So if you can find some local landowner who's prepared to make over a field to you, it does make all the difference. So Yup, just on our own experiences in the local area, Frank, you have another one.
490 01:12:02.340 --> 01:12:28.380 frank deas, killearn: Just quickest more for Joanne. What we've been doing recently is working with 8 or 9 villages, so all of us are fairly small villages. But we have one high school and one local villages and all the ones in that catchment area have come together at the South West Australian Climate action network. Because if you feel kind of isolated yourself, Joanne, there's probably people in neighbouring villages equally isolated. So if you can come together and cross fertilize in terms of sharing ideas.
491 01:12:28.380 --> 01:12:38.279 frank deas, killearn: One of you puts on a film, show the other share and attend it, and you gradually build up in that way. And again, this is probably slightly different down South. But
492 01:12:38.280 --> 01:12:55.720 frank deas, killearn: we satisfy Section 19, the Community Empowerment Act. So we're able to submit our own local place plan with a climate focus as well as individuals, individual villages submitting place plans. So you can get perhaps, a critical mass by combining with neighbouring villages until you get the momentum up in your own village.
493 01:12:58.010 --> 01:12:59.460 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration, Bembridge: Alright, thank you.
494 01:12:59.780 --> 01:13:17.669 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration, Bembridge: I do have one more question, Gary, for you, please. No mention anywhere in your presentation about ev charging points, and I thought, as a place where lots of visitors were coming to see all these movies being made, would there not be an advantage in going for ev charging points with you?
495 01:13:18.780 --> 01:13:24.770 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Ev charging points are okay. We have the same problem in that. We don't have
496 01:13:25.060 --> 01:13:39.179 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: ownership of the land, or we don't manage the land where you'd put ev charging points. So ev charging points are the remit of Wiltshire council. At the moment there is huge amounts of work being done on ev charging points
497 01:13:39.400 --> 01:13:43.850 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: at the moment. So, for example, they did contact us
498 01:13:44.020 --> 01:13:55.139 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: to ask where to put them for people that don't have driveways, that kind of thing. So people so good, streets for putting Ev charges so responded to that. Consult consultation.
499 01:13:56.490 --> 01:14:12.609 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: there are lots of work being done at the local community center, the the campus. So you've got this massive kind of like sports complex. The high school next door. So they're putting in loads of ev charging points there at the moment. There's a few around town.
500 01:14:12.670 --> 01:14:27.779 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: but it's very much the like, I said. The remit of Wiltshire Council, and they do. They are kind of taking it and running with it across Corsham. I think. Like, I said, there's there's work at the moment that's going on, and we're expecting quite a lot more in the future.
501 01:14:28.160 --> 01:14:30.450 Andrew Clegg, Box: Okay, thank you very much for clarifying that
502 01:14:30.830 --> 01:14:34.630 Andrew Clegg, Box: the area is very well known for coaching ins, though.
503 01:14:35.485 --> 01:14:40.834 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration, Bembridge: Right. So they're looking after all the horses, are they?
504 01:14:42.260 --> 01:14:49.490 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration, Bembridge: Let me just check with anyone, please. If there are any other questions that need to be asked. No.
505 01:14:49.640 --> 01:15:05.009 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration, Bembridge: I've yet again failed dismally to remember what's coming next week, so I'm afraid I can't tell you, but I will send out an invitation later. Thank you all so much for coming along and for your help and questions this week, and we look forward to seeing you in the future. Gary. Thank you again.
506 01:15:05.010 --> 01:15:06.850 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: Yeah, thanks a lot. Good.
507 01:15:06.850 --> 01:15:08.779 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: Take care, everybody. Bye, bye.
508 01:15:08.780 --> 01:15:10.489 sarah barker: Gary Bye, everyone.
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