Banter 74: 18Jun25 Create your own Nature Reserve, Ben Wielgus

Ben recounts the creation of the Environment Group by Long Sutton PC, its early days, the survey and Environment Days, thence the creation of the Nature Reserve, and all the rights and wrongs thereto

Ben presented his experiences setting up a nature reserve in his parish council, emphasizing the importance of community engagement and focusing on positive outcomes rather than fear-based messaging. Ben shared insights about managing the nature reserve, including successful community events, volunteer engagement, and challenges with governance and funding, while also discussing future plans for the reserve's expansion and environmental initiatives. The group explored various aspects of community engagement, including public surveys, biodiversity projects, and sustainability initiatives, with participants sharing their experiences and suggestions for future improvements.

Video Timeline (min:sec):

00:00 - 42:30 Presentation 42:30 - 62:02 (end) Q & A

Presentation:

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Jun 18, 2025 11:52 AM London ID: 834 5460 8536

Ben's Presentation and Attendee Introductions

Graham welcomes the attendees to the meeting, including Amanda, who is joining from Cornwall. Ben, the speaker, arrives and expresses some nervousness about living up to Graham's introduction. As more participants join, Graham and Ben engage in small talk about backgrounds and locations of attendees. Ben expresses interest in the geographic spread of participants, learning that they come from various parts of the country. The meeting is about to begin with Ben preparing to present on his experiences.

Community-Driven Nature Reserve Initiatives

Ben shared his experience setting up a nature reserve in his parish council, highlighting the importance of understanding community motivations and focusing on actionable initiatives. He emphasized that people are more motivated by positive outcomes and community connection than fear of climate change or nature loss. The survey results showed strong interest in nature protection and waste reduction, with less awareness about climate change actions. Ben concluded that successful environmental initiatives should focus on enabling community members to take positive actions that align with their interests and capabilities.

Community Nature Initiative Success Story

Ben discussed the evolution of a community nature initiative, noting that while governance structures were established, they weren't effectively used. A turning point came when they organized a village hall event that attracted over 100 people from a population of 500-600, leading to increased community engagement and volunteer participation. The success of this event inspired the parish council to hold annual meetings where community groups can share their activities, and Ben described how small focused initiatives like owl box installations were successfully implemented by dedicated volunteers rather than requiring full group participation.

Nature Reserve Expansion Plans

Ben discussed plans for an expanded Environment and Nature Day in September 2025, which will focus on wildlife and energy efficiency. He explained the group's efforts to create a nature reserve on a 6-acre plot of land, which involved convincing the farmer tenant to forego rent in exchange for the land's use for environmental purposes. Ben outlined the challenges of balancing community use with wildlife conservation, including decisions about dog access and competing community spaces. He also described recent tree planting events, which were successful in engaging the community, and future plans for the nature reserve, including the installation of picnic benches and the creation of ponds.

Community Nature Reserve Management Insights

Ben shared insights from managing a community nature reserve, highlighting the importance of enthusiastic volunteers, clear governance, and early success projects to maintain community interest. He emphasized the need for a manageable patch of land, effective communication, and balancing enthusiasm with practicality to prevent burnout. Ben also discussed challenges like workload distribution and the need for a charter to address potential conflicts, while noting that securing land and funding remains a significant hurdle. The group's success in engaging the community and attracting volunteers was attributed to visible progress and effective communication.

Nature Reserve Development Plans

The group discussed the development of a nature reserve, focusing on the need for a composting area for educational purposes and the importance of wildlife corridors connecting the reserve to other nature areas in the parish. Ben explained that while community interest in the project was split, with clean water receiving more funding than sanitation, the group had received advice from various organizations including the Wildlife Trust and Bumblebee Conservation Trust. They discussed plans for tree planting and watering, with Ben noting that while some trees had been lost, they could always be replaced, and they had secured permission to connect a farmer's pipe to the field for watering. Garry shared his experience with wildflower plug planting, while Matthew mentioned his efforts to establish a biodiversity and sustainability working group.

Public Engagement and Solar Initiatives

The group discussed past experiences with public engagement events, noting that while talks and presentations were less successful in the afternoon, interactive stalls and neighbor-to-neighbor conversations were more effective. Ben shared plans to organize a walking tour of the Nature Reserve in October, pending weather conditions. David introduced the concept of integrating biodiversity with ground-mounted solar systems, particularly through agrivoltaics, suggesting this could be a viable option for community-owned fields to achieve net-zero goals.

Village Sustainability Survey Experience

Ben shared his experience conducting a village survey on sustainability, explaining it was done both online and through paper versions distributed via newsletters and village hall collections. He described how the survey was informally developed through casual conversations with neighbors, with a small group of council members initially discussing the idea before drafting and sharing it through Surveymonkey. Ben emphasized that the survey's primary purpose was to gauge village support and identify key areas of interest, rather than being a comprehensive data collection exercise, noting that while they had climate deniers respond, the survey achieved its basic goal of engagement.

Chat:

0:18:18 Jo Stone, Oxon: graham are you recording? 00:18:28 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - IoW: Yes 00:18:47 Jo Stone, Oxon: Reacted to "Yes" with 👍 00:56:08 Louise Paul: Thankyou, very interesting. Did you take advice on the nature reserve from the Wildlife Trust, or otherwise involve them? (Answer: Yes amongst several others - Bees, Reimagining The Levels) 01:11:28 David Morgan-Jones Ewshot PC: Thanks you very much - really helpful

Speech-to-text (for AI search):

96 00:12:31.150 --> 00:12:47.049 Ben Wielgus: Whilst we wait, Graham, I'd be really curious, actually, from the people who've joined the call. I think many of you are on parish councils, but I didn't have a good sense of geographic spread. Are most people down in the Southwest, or have we got people from other parts of the country as well.

97 00:12:48.430 --> 00:12:58.449 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - IoW: Well, if you look at their names you can see them. There's a fair bunch down the South West, but you've got Jenny in Sussex. You got Alan is way up in Shropshire.

98 00:12:59.140 --> 00:13:04.970 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - IoW: Jo is in Oxford, or the Cotwolds, at least.

99 00:13:05.540 --> 00:13:05.990 Ben Wielgus: Okay.

100 00:13:07.210 --> 00:13:14.860 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - IoW: And Stuart, of course, is, I think, just about the furthest east of us at the moment. No, maybe Jenny would give that one a run for her money.

101 00:13:17.920 --> 00:13:19.190 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - IoW: So all over.

102 00:13:20.590 --> 00:13:25.480 Ben Wielgus: And then we've got Matthew from just down the road, which is good. So Matthew will know the area I'm talking about. That's great.

103 00:13:26.500 --> 00:13:27.370 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - IoW: Yes.

104 00:13:30.020 --> 00:13:42.980 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - IoW: Well, we're at the magical witching hour, Ben, so why don't I hand over the reins to you? And you can please take charge of the situation, and show us what you're going to show us with wit, humour, and intelligence.

105 00:13:43.160 --> 00:14:10.040 Ben Wielgus: I know I might achieve one of those. So whether people are laughing at me or with me, or we shall see. So it's great to see everybody. I've always been enjoying some of the catch ups from these sessions, and so that is the wrong slide so what I want to do is to talk you through a little bit of the experience that we've had really not having good luck with the presentation today.

106 00:14:11.420 --> 00:14:13.409 Ben Wielgus: Right now, you should be able to see it.

107 00:14:13.780 --> 00:14:14.740 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - IoW: And so thank you.

108 00:14:14.740 --> 00:14:31.970 Ben Wielgus: I was going to talk to you a little bit through our experience and some of the big questions we've been asking ourselves and the lessons that we've learned from creating an environment group within our Parish Council, and then essentially setting up the grandly titled Long Sutton Nature Reserve.

109 00:14:31.970 --> 00:14:47.860 Ben Wielgus: which is a 6 acre site in the heart of our community, and it's been running for a full 6 months. So it is very early days. But I think that's why you wanted me to talk. Graham is just to share how we got going, because it's all well and good going to talk to people who run a 20 year old. Nature reserve

110 00:14:47.860 --> 00:14:51.979 Ben Wielgus: awesome. But what I'm guessing a lot of people are interested in is, where do we get going?

111 00:14:52.040 --> 00:15:00.269 Ben Wielgus: So I'm going to take you through the journey of the last 3 years in, instead of building up to this point, and try and share with you where it where it went very wrong.

112 00:15:00.370 --> 00:15:07.990 Ben Wielgus: and and where it went very right, and if there are lots of questions at the end, or as we go, that would be awesome

113 00:15:08.130 --> 00:15:27.899 Ben Wielgus: little bit about me, so I'm fortunate to have lived all over the country in in Manchester, Huddersfield, Chesterfield, Redford, London, and these days I find myself in Somerset down here in the South West, and I have a science and computing background, although. Had a stint as a tour guide in New Zealand.

114 00:15:27.900 --> 00:15:38.220 Ben Wielgus: and I've had the good fortune to work in sustainability for large corporates for the last 25 years, so this will probably feel a bit of a corporate presentation. Unfortunately, that is kind of what I do.

115 00:15:38.220 --> 00:15:51.630 Ben Wielgus: but everything I've been doing is been trying to find the business case for running big businesses in a more responsible way. So that includes working with a lot of High Street names. You might know as well as a number of other groups that you don't.

116 00:15:51.760 --> 00:16:18.260 Ben Wielgus: I've been volunteering for a long time as well, so I've had 10 years as a school governor up in Nottinghamshire, and then, since moving down to Somerset and joining my second Parish Council. I'm now clocking in about 13 or 14 years as a parish councillor, doing a stint as chair as the broadband and Communications Officer and building a neighbourhood plan in my previous community. But I have only been down in Somerset for a few years, so I'm just getting a feel for how things work.

117 00:16:19.070 --> 00:16:36.289 Ben Wielgus: The parish that I serve in now is is the Long Sutton parish down here. So between Taunton, Bridgewater and Yeovil, and it's probably like a lot of you from looking at some of the areas. It's it's a small community of of hundreds of homes, not thousands of homes split into 3 villages.

118 00:16:36.460 --> 00:16:50.979 Ben Wielgus: It's generally an elderly population. It's rural, it's reasonably affluent. Although we do run the gamut from from social housing all the way up to millionaires mansions, and we're fortunate to have a pub, a shop and a school and a church.

119 00:16:51.050 --> 00:16:59.469 Ben Wielgus: But our precept is only 40 to 50,000 a year, so everything we've been doing around the environment group has been learning to do as much as we can

120 00:16:59.470 --> 00:17:22.080 Ben Wielgus: with a relatively small population of potential volunteers and a relatively modest budget. I don't think we spent more than one or 2,000 pounds a year on the Environment Group, and actually one of the goals of the Environment group has been to bring more money in from grants and funding elsewhere than it actually cost the Council, because then it's a significant net positive to the community.

121 00:17:23.859 --> 00:17:32.730 Ben Wielgus: Really, the heart of of what we're doing here is almost as soon as I joined the Parish Council just under 3 years ago, I got invited to take part in the Environment Group.

122 00:17:32.800 --> 00:17:48.509 Ben Wielgus: which is a group of parish councillors who were passionate about the environment and were maybe looking to change the mind of some of the more traditional councillors who didn't necessarily think that there was a problem, and didn't necessarily think there was a high demand for this kind of thing in our parish.

123 00:17:48.510 --> 00:18:03.709 Ben Wielgus: I think there was generally a feel of. It's all fine, or people don't want to get involved with this stuff. Our job is to maintain the hedgerows and to maintain the drains. I am exaggerating for emphasis, but there was certainly a skepticism of the the huge amount of interest that we've discovered in the parish.

124 00:18:03.730 --> 00:18:14.049 Ben Wielgus: So this environment group ended up being about 6 to 8 people fluctuating in size between some parish councillors and then other members of the community who wanted to get involved.

125 00:18:15.920 --> 00:18:24.390 Ben Wielgus: As I say, I'm going to go through a few important questions we asked ourselves, and the 1st important question that I always want to ask when I'm working on this kind of agenda is, why.

126 00:18:25.040 --> 00:18:31.090 Ben Wielgus: why do we want to get involved in an environment group. Why do we want to volunteer? Why do we want to be a parish councillor?

127 00:18:31.680 --> 00:18:38.580 Ben Wielgus: And it's usually it's a really personal thing for me. So much of this is about legacy.

128 00:18:38.930 --> 00:19:03.139 Ben Wielgus: I want to leave behind something that has made a positive difference, not necessarily the end of my life, but at the end of my tenure as a parish councillor, or maybe even just at the end of the year. We all give an awful lot of time to our volunteering and our Parish Council work. And it's really nice to look back at the end of the year and say, actually, we have left something in the community that we can be proud of. And it's nice to be acknowledged for that.

129 00:19:03.420 --> 00:19:21.409 Ben Wielgus: Other people motivate on sustainability because they've got kids or grandkids, and they want to make sure those kids live as good a life as they did. Other people want to get involved for exercise or for nature benefits, but certainly in that environment group most people were motivated by the idea of giving something back to nature

130 00:19:21.530 --> 00:19:24.120 Ben Wielgus: as well as kind of being involved in the community.

131 00:19:24.650 --> 00:19:35.200 Ben Wielgus: And if you're on this call, you probably all have your own. Why? But you're bearing in mind that people may be attracted to this group for lots of different reasons is, is a great place. To start.

132 00:19:35.970 --> 00:19:39.140 Ben Wielgus: The second important question we ask is, is, what

133 00:19:39.230 --> 00:19:50.689 Ben Wielgus: so what do we actually want to do? What do we want to focus on? Because there are a huge number of things that we found that people wanted to do, whether it's planting wildflowers, planting trees.

134 00:19:50.770 --> 00:20:19.400 Ben Wielgus: engaging with farmers is an interesting challenge. Solar panels recycling, repurposing, repair cafes growing your own veg, sharing plants. This whole thing kind of got very very complicated in terms of lots and lots of competing priorities. And we're a small council with a small number of volunteers initially. So we sort of really wanted to make sure we're focused on the things that really would engage with people.

135 00:20:20.350 --> 00:20:25.989 Ben Wielgus: And probably the 1st thing we did like a lot of people is, we started with a survey, and

136 00:20:26.480 --> 00:20:28.519 Ben Wielgus: what I'll say with hindsight is

137 00:20:28.680 --> 00:20:33.190 Ben Wielgus: the survey probably didn't tell us anything we didn't already know

138 00:20:33.340 --> 00:20:37.690 Ben Wielgus: in that people care most about nature, climate change and waste.

139 00:20:38.740 --> 00:20:56.980 Ben Wielgus: But what it did was it gave us a license to operate, because it gave us proof that that intuition that we had as a group was correct, that we actually were able to show with data that there is strong interest in this agenda in our councils and that we're focusing in the right area. It's not something we're going to repeat every year. But it got us started.

140 00:20:57.190 --> 00:21:18.110 Ben Wielgus: I said, we've got a small community. So we got 80 survey responses of 161 people, but that's about one in 5 of the village and one in 5 of the houses. So it was a decent sample, and better than many surveys that I've seen for things like neighbourhood plans which come in at somewhere between 5 and 10% for those who've done neighborhood plans. It's really hard to get a high response rate.

141 00:21:18.880 --> 00:21:40.749 Ben Wielgus: And, as expected, you know, the folks who responded were generally over 50. That kind of meets our demographic in the area, but also showed the kind of people who were engaged in this, and therefore the things that we're doing, the what might be better tailored or best tailored to people in their fifties and sixties. What kind of things are they interested in? What are they able to do.

142 00:21:41.440 --> 00:21:42.290 Ben Wielgus: and

143 00:21:43.050 --> 00:21:58.610 Ben Wielgus: we also were able to show to the more skeptical members of of the community and the group that there is a strong desire to do something about this because people feel concerned about climate and its impact on the environment, and they want to do something about it.

144 00:22:00.200 --> 00:22:19.049 Ben Wielgus: We're seeing from a lot of the community concern about the rate of change that was coming from that community. So a lot of people are saying, the seasons and weather and countryside and nature are very different from when they were younger. And bear in mind, most respondees are in their fifties and sixties. That means they've seen change over 30, 40, 50 years.

145 00:22:19.170 --> 00:22:22.950 Ben Wielgus: So we know they're concerned about it. We know that they see change.

146 00:22:23.480 --> 00:22:26.489 Ben Wielgus: We know that they're worried about climate change as well.

147 00:22:27.580 --> 00:22:36.281 Ben Wielgus: And we also know that they deeply care and are connected to their community because of a lot of common things. As I said, we

148 00:22:38.220 --> 00:22:45.340 Ben Wielgus: we wanted to find that there was interest in our area, but we also wanted to lean into stuff that they cared about

149 00:22:45.480 --> 00:23:09.559 Ben Wielgus: and working in sustainability. For as long as I have. Most people don't actually take action because of a fear of nature dying, or because of a fear of climate change. They're motivated to get involved with stuff because of the opportunity to see the positive upside of it. So it's about protecting the countryside and enhancing nature. It's about the connection in that community. Again, for those of you who from more city based or urban environments.

150 00:23:09.560 --> 00:23:18.969 Ben Wielgus: these are slightly different things. People might care about different issues, but green space seems to feature in in every sort of city sustainability program. I've looked at.

151 00:23:20.090 --> 00:23:50.089 Ben Wielgus: The great thing is that we found out of the people who responded. Lots and lots of people were already taking actions to protect nature and reducing waste to landfill and fighting climate change. But there's a noticeable difference. Most people are doing those things on nature and reducing waste. But fighting climate change was a bit more of a foreign concept to people. They felt there was less they could do. And I think a lot of the despair around climate change is a loss of empowerment. Same goes with extinction. Seems like most people don't want to get involved because they don't know how

152 00:23:50.100 --> 00:23:51.810 Ben Wielgus: it feels too big and scary.

153 00:23:52.590 --> 00:23:53.730 Ben Wielgus: And so

154 00:23:53.870 --> 00:24:11.470 Ben Wielgus: when we looked at the detail again, people are really interested in the recycling energy usage, saving themselves money, traditional behaviors. But they know less about protecting soil or changing energy supplies. It was very interesting that very few people had thought about switching their energy supply in this area.

155 00:24:14.230 --> 00:24:41.250 Ben Wielgus: and what we heard in talking to people during the surveys and in the text responses was they would love help in identifying more things they can do. People are concerned about it, but that means there's a motivation to take action. So if you want to set up a group in this area. If you want the group to be effective, it seems like the best thing to do is find the things the community cares about most and then enable them to get involved doing stuff that helps them feel better because they're making a positive contribution.

156 00:24:41.750 --> 00:24:50.720 Ben Wielgus: So it might not be that they're recycling. But it might be they can do things that protect nature and fight climate change like they really want to do those 2 things.

157 00:24:52.190 --> 00:24:54.979 Ben Wielgus: and that allowed us to set up

158 00:24:55.160 --> 00:25:06.499 Ben Wielgus: a a governance framework of our 3 priorities. You know, we're going to do a bunch of stuff that enables activities. But we're gonna focus on carbon and waste, and nature makes sense

159 00:25:06.940 --> 00:25:19.290 Ben Wielgus: didn't actually help us at all. I'll come back to that. But we set up all this governance. We had big task lists of things we wanted to do, and how often we were going to do them, and who we assigned them to.

160 00:25:19.640 --> 00:25:22.770 Ben Wielgus: and I think we wrote it, and then never looked at it again.

161 00:25:23.020 --> 00:25:29.020 Ben Wielgus: Graham was part of the group at this time, actually, and I think Graham will remember writing this and the fact that it didn't work.

162 00:25:29.680 --> 00:25:34.849 Ben Wielgus: and I'll come back to that. Why, it didn't work in a bit. But the process was useful.

163 00:25:34.990 --> 00:25:40.470 Ben Wielgus: The output was not used, and I think that's a really key thing. I'll come back to

164 00:25:40.870 --> 00:25:52.370 Ben Wielgus: what it did allow us to do, though, is it allowed us to get started, and we planted some trees along the cricket pitch. We held some nature days to engage people. We planted some saplings and distribute them around the area.

165 00:25:52.660 --> 00:25:56.059 Ben Wielgus: and we began working with our lentsmen on this stuff.

166 00:25:57.680 --> 00:25:58.410 Ben Wielgus: But

167 00:25:58.640 --> 00:26:05.179 Ben Wielgus: it was fine. It was ticking along. It was a small group of people doing a little bit, getting a little bit of funding from the Parish Council

168 00:26:05.400 --> 00:26:10.030 Ben Wielgus: and the transformative thing. The thing that made the biggest difference to this came about a year in.

169 00:26:10.280 --> 00:26:11.470 Ben Wielgus: and it was this

170 00:26:12.476 --> 00:26:23.189 Ben Wielgus: we decided that we wanted to try and get people engaged in the agenda and help them understand the actions that they can take in this area.

171 00:26:23.410 --> 00:26:29.540 Ben Wielgus: So we we hired the village hall half a day and we we created

172 00:26:29.650 --> 00:26:34.519 Ben Wielgus: a very simple set of goals. We wanted 50 people from the village to come along.

173 00:26:35.100 --> 00:26:44.289 Ben Wielgus: and we want to lead them in in practical and fun conversations about what we can do in our area. You know just things that can start today.

174 00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:54.999 Ben Wielgus: And if we can see them planting some trees and seeds, if we can get some grant applications for our local tree planting charity, who gives out free trees, and if we can attract a few more volunteers, then we were successful.

175 00:26:55.760 --> 00:27:17.940 Ben Wielgus: and we actually ended up with a problem because so many people turned up we couldn't fit them all. In the village hall we put out seating for 50, and we had more than 100 turn up and bear in mind, the total population of our village is around 500 to 600. We had a huge engagement in this, which I think showed that people are hungry for information on this and in the room we had

176 00:27:17.960 --> 00:27:46.240 Ben Wielgus: very simple layout. You know we had about 12 stations, where people were greeted when they came in. We had the free tea and coffee from the Wi, and then on each table we had a little activity. There was a guy who brought in some bees so people could learn about how you support pollinators. We were giving out wildflower seeds. We were talking about the survey results. Kids were building bug houses. There was one which was testing your knowledge for recycling. If you got the 10 things in the right boxes. Then you got a free

177 00:27:46.240 --> 00:27:49.719 Ben Wielgus: Lindor chocolate ball, and it was great.

178 00:27:49.720 --> 00:28:02.178 Ben Wielgus: It was very easy to organize. Actually, you just need to hire the room. Have somebody set up the tables and invite a whole bunch of people along with a very simple briefing. What it did was it gave us

179 00:28:02.780 --> 00:28:06.520 Ben Wielgus: catalyst for pulling people together, and

180 00:28:06.760 --> 00:28:09.590 Ben Wielgus: really seeing that there is interest in the area.

181 00:28:10.559 --> 00:28:13.649 Ben Wielgus: Little simple things like we set up a little timetable.

182 00:28:13.930 --> 00:28:35.559 Ben Wielgus: and we assigned owners for actions on the day, and we did that at a couple of meetings. It wasn't any more complicated than that, and it was. It was somehow it all fell into place, and people just got to have a conversation about it, and one of the number one things that came out of it was more people putting the hand up and saying, I don't want to be involved in running this thing.

183 00:28:35.970 --> 00:28:41.550 Ben Wielgus: but I'd love to turn up at something on a on a semi-regular basis, and just do something good.

184 00:28:42.330 --> 00:28:53.699 Ben Wielgus: And probably, I think, between this group the chair of our Parish Council wasn't necessarily convinced that people were interested in this stuff until he saw the number of people who turned up at this meeting.

185 00:28:54.080 --> 00:29:14.940 Ben Wielgus: and it actually inspired him to do an in-person annual parish meeting, where, instead of just reading out a statement in the Parish Council meeting every year for our annual meeting, he wanted to bring everybody to the village hall to tell them about all the great things that we do around our parish. And we've just had the second one of those, and it's incredibly successful. Because people

186 00:29:14.940 --> 00:29:25.380 Ben Wielgus: want to hear 5 or 10 min segments about what each of the community groups in the village is doing, what we're doing around the new playground. What's happening at the cricket pitch? What's happening at the Nature Reserve?

187 00:29:25.660 --> 00:29:40.649 Ben Wielgus: And so I think what we've found is we've created this snowball effect that by showing people will come out and join us, and that it's quite easy to organize these things. We're finding more and more groups want to engage with the community, and we get more and more volunteers involved for activities

188 00:29:41.180 --> 00:29:51.869 Ben Wielgus: the biggest bit, and probably the scariest bit. And I'll be honest a little bit sooner than I was planning on doing was the creation of the grandly titled Long Sutton Nature Reserve.

189 00:29:52.530 --> 00:29:56.369 Ben Wielgus: So we've done a few things over the last year

190 00:29:56.560 --> 00:30:10.709 Ben Wielgus: our boxes and surveys. We're going to host another environment day because they prove very popular. So a 3rd one makes sense. But the long, certain nature really feels like an ambitious project. And I think again, if you're interested in doing this kind of thing.

191 00:30:11.380 --> 00:30:15.130 Ben Wielgus: it is a bit scary, and it is a bit of a leap of faith.

192 00:30:15.920 --> 00:30:45.480 Ben Wielgus: But we've been weirdly and rapidly successful on this, because we tested the village through the surveys, and we knew there was interest in it, and we had a good enough call group of people who could coordinate things that it's become much easier than I expected, because I didn't think we should start it if I'm honest. I didn't think we were ready, but we we sort of did reluctantly on my part, and I've been really pleased with how well it's come together, so I think it makes sense to make the leap in it.

193 00:30:45.870 --> 00:30:52.350 Ben Wielgus: The owl boxes is a great example of how this works in the environment group. And it's the same principle applies to the to the nature group.

194 00:30:52.460 --> 00:30:54.549 Ben Wielgus: So through the Wildlife Reserve.

195 00:30:55.370 --> 00:31:07.149 Ben Wielgus: there were 2 people in the Environment Group who really cared about owls and did an owl survey and create a little Whatsapp group where people were reporting the Owl sightings or Owl hearings, I guess, is the better phrase.

196 00:31:07.270 --> 00:31:12.680 Ben Wielgus: And then there was a guy who was known in the village to enjoy woodwork here on the left, Neil.

197 00:31:13.250 --> 00:31:17.680 Ben Wielgus: and ultimately, is there, Nigel? Even ultimately the

198 00:31:19.430 --> 00:31:21.280 Ben Wielgus: the group who want to do

199 00:31:21.400 --> 00:31:26.979 Ben Wielgus: our boxes were empowered by the wider environment group to just go off and get on with it.

200 00:31:27.180 --> 00:31:54.790 Ben Wielgus: I think sometimes there's a tendency with these kinds of groups where it feels like everyone has to be involved with everything. But realistically, what we found was one or 2 people really cared about it. They organized it between them. The group said, Yep, go ahead with that. Here's a little bit of funding, and then they invited people to join them as and when they did suitable activities. So right now our owl boxes, we think, might be being used. They only went up at the beginning of the year. And suddenly the community have been really engaged in that.

201 00:31:55.160 --> 00:32:09.060 Ben Wielgus: Similarly, we are planning another environment and Nature Day that will kind of engage with folks, and we're going to expand it this year instead of hosting in spring. We're going to host it in September, when people's minds start turning to planning for

202 00:32:09.310 --> 00:32:12.099 Ben Wielgus: nature and gardens over the following year.

203 00:32:12.200 --> 00:32:24.949 Ben Wielgus: but also where we think people will start thinking about energy, usage and climate change because we're coming up to winter. So we're going to split our haul in half this time. Half are going to do the wildlife stuff

204 00:32:25.080 --> 00:32:36.359 Ben Wielgus: and half are going to do energy reduction, energy efficiency. So how to insulate your home solar panels, air source heat pumps. And the idea is just to give people a chance to come and explore it as an option.

205 00:32:37.920 --> 00:32:45.119 Ben Wielgus: But the bit you I'm sure all really want to know about is by doing all this stuff? How does it enable the creation of the Nature reserve?

206 00:32:45.340 --> 00:32:49.920 Ben Wielgus: So I said, We've we've got a core group who coordinate everything.

207 00:32:50.140 --> 00:32:53.379 Ben Wielgus: And this is this is our plot of land just here.

208 00:32:53.760 --> 00:33:07.209 Ben Wielgus: So down at the bottom of the screen, it's between our main village of Long Sutton, where the post office and and the pub and everything else are. And then here the village I actually live in, which is one of our satellite villages called Knoll, and it's about 6 acres.

209 00:33:08.496 --> 00:33:11.250 Ben Wielgus: It's accessible down this, this little walking path here.

210 00:33:11.880 --> 00:33:23.359 Ben Wielgus: and it's been owned by the Parish Council for decades. And so one of 2 bits of land that we own and look after, and the farmer tenant, who'd been grazing sheep on it for many years, had decided to surrender it.

211 00:33:23.660 --> 00:33:29.080 Ben Wielgus: and between a couple of conversations with our chat.

212 00:33:29.200 --> 00:33:41.209 Ben Wielgus: they agreed to to forego the 500 pounds a year rent that we used to get for that field, and instead give it over to the environment group to see if we could create a nature reserve.

213 00:33:41.580 --> 00:33:47.689 Ben Wielgus: The only reason I think he was willing to do that was because we'd proved that our group had longevity

214 00:33:47.940 --> 00:34:07.749 Ben Wielgus: and we'd been able to bring together the community at the environment days and at the various other projects we'd be doing. So. He was convinced that there was enough interest in the community to maybe sustain a project that's slightly larger, and that we could justify giving up the 500 pounds a year in rent, because enough of the community would support this

215 00:34:07.800 --> 00:34:21.129 Ben Wielgus: again. All that work on surveying, and all the work to kind of prove. Our concept gave us much bigger license to operate. Sort of show that this is a. This is a good use of parish funds or sacrifice of parish funds.

216 00:34:22.440 --> 00:34:26.069 Ben Wielgus: But what it puts on us is a sort of duty

217 00:34:26.190 --> 00:34:39.610 Ben Wielgus: that the Nature reserve can't be this private thing for just a few of us to come and play in. If we can't draw the community down to that nature reserve and show very actively. It's being used by a wide cross section of the community.

218 00:34:39.750 --> 00:34:46.129 Ben Wielgus: Then the risk is we we lose it because we can't justify that. We're giving up that that rent for it.

219 00:34:46.350 --> 00:34:49.899 Ben Wielgus: And what that led to is a lot of discussions in our group between

220 00:34:50.820 --> 00:34:54.140 Ben Wielgus: whether we should just fence it all off and let it go wild.

221 00:34:54.670 --> 00:34:58.040 Ben Wielgus: or whether it should have walking paths and picnic benches.

222 00:34:58.150 --> 00:35:01.420 Ben Wielgus: whether it should have an orchard and vegetable growing garden.

223 00:35:01.570 --> 00:35:29.410 Ben Wielgus: or whether we should have a place. You can walk your dogs, because nothing has been as controversial as whether dogs are allowed on the nature, reserve or not, or whether even we have a free running zone for dogs, because we recently closed our cricket pitch to dogs, and therefore the residents running out of places to run their dogs. We know walking dogs would bring people down there. But it's also not so good for wildlife. So what's the balance of how we use this community space for the benefit of nature, but also for the benefit of as many of the community as possible.

224 00:35:29.950 --> 00:35:34.130 Ben Wielgus: The other thing that's worth pointing out is is up here at the top of the map.

225 00:35:34.260 --> 00:35:54.700 Ben Wielgus: You can see this is actually a small holding and another nature conservation area that's being run by a private individual because she believes in nature, and she wants to run it as an art space, a community kitchen. And there are a few plots of land around here which are also classified as private community of nature reserves under our local wildlife Trust.

226 00:35:56.090 --> 00:36:05.590 Ben Wielgus: This is interesting, though, at the top, because arguably, if she's setting up this space as a community kitchen, community art space. It's it's a competitor

227 00:36:05.770 --> 00:36:24.300 Ben Wielgus: for the potential use of the community land, because they're quite close to each other. And we might find that someone wants to do a willow weaving class or an outdoor painting class has to choose between those 2 spaces, which means that either space is going to be utilized a lot less than it would have been if they were the only space in the area.

228 00:36:24.470 --> 00:36:32.179 Ben Wielgus: So what we need to do is to work really closely to make sure that these 2 areas serve different purposes, that they don't compete with each other.

229 00:36:32.830 --> 00:36:58.929 Ben Wielgus: We also got really strong feedback from the community on nature days. There is no interest in growing a community orchard here, and there's no interest in an allotments here. A lot of these community spaces would be dedicated towards some element of food growing. But actually, if you look at our area, most people have a fairly substantial back garden. There are orchards all over the place, and we have far more apples in our community than we know what to do with. So again, the nature reserve

230 00:36:59.060 --> 00:37:06.099 Ben Wielgus: lent more into a space for nature than it was a space for food production and and growing crafts

231 00:37:06.870 --> 00:37:24.139 Ben Wielgus: that on the flip side slightly agitates some of the farmers, or the more traditional groups of the community because they see that we're taking land out of production and into just a nature space. So there was this interesting debate around what our role is in ensuring that the country can feed itself now, and in the future

232 00:37:25.170 --> 00:37:46.850 Ben Wielgus: a little bit of a closer with the Nature reserve. We started sketching out what it looks like. So down the left. Here is the somewhat of a road. It's certainly a bad track that you can just about drive vehicles down. There is a gate at the top that was completely overgrown, and another gate here on this road, so it lends itself very well for little walkthroughs. So this green is paths.

233 00:37:47.310 --> 00:37:51.500 Ben Wielgus: The idea is to to plant up a quieter, wilder area in the top corner

234 00:37:51.630 --> 00:37:54.329 Ben Wielgus: and a hazel. The meadow down here

235 00:37:54.610 --> 00:38:00.430 Ben Wielgus: with ponds going in at strategic low points, and then in between tree copses.

236 00:38:00.920 --> 00:38:05.469 Ben Wielgus: More fence, more hedging going in made from native species.

237 00:38:05.470 --> 00:38:24.299 Ben Wielgus: and then some wildflower test beds which will eventually be expanded. So the idea here is, we're trying to create a diversity of habitats and a diversity of uses that don't compete with similar things nearby. So walking paths to draw people through every time I'm down there I see people walking through with dogs on leads.

238 00:38:24.300 --> 00:38:37.849 Ben Wielgus: wildflowers, because obviously it's great for pollinators ponds, because it's usually the base of the ecosystem, and then a growing area with plants that can be used for future country crafts, but also are great for wildlife as well.

239 00:38:37.860 --> 00:38:42.110 Ben Wielgus: So it's a real mix, and it's evolving every time we go up there. There is more ideas.

240 00:38:42.240 --> 00:38:59.160 Ben Wielgus: and already we're starting to see. You know, the local school has come and built some bughouses here as part of one of their nature days. We're starting to see trees being donated that are fruit trees or trees from people's gardens, and so they're starting to fill in new patches as well.

241 00:39:00.310 --> 00:39:04.679 Ben Wielgus: The best day of my entire year. So far was this.

242 00:39:05.140 --> 00:39:13.440 Ben Wielgus: so we were able to get gifted 800 trees and hedging plants across about 20 different species

243 00:39:13.940 --> 00:39:14.645 Ben Wielgus: and

244 00:39:15.780 --> 00:39:23.249 Ben Wielgus: We. We invited people down to come and plant those trees, expecting about 20 people to turn up.

245 00:39:23.700 --> 00:39:25.740 Ben Wielgus: and we had more than 60,

246 00:39:26.020 --> 00:39:36.500 Ben Wielgus: some from the local community, some from the local charity that gave out the trees, and some folks from far away, just because they'd heard we were doing tree planting, and people want to plant trees.

247 00:39:36.780 --> 00:39:48.400 Ben Wielgus: and there's a sort of some of the lessons we took from this is, there is no shortage of trees. If you want to plant them. There are so many groups giving out free trees. You almost get a bit fed up of being offered trees.

248 00:39:48.590 --> 00:40:16.020 Ben Wielgus: It's 1 of the things you can get most easily. We gave out 100 at a previous community event, and frankly, not everybody wanted them because they didn't have space, but we ended up giving them to a local farmer who planted them. And I think our community in total, bear in mind, is a very small community. We've taken 3 to 4,000 trees from charities in just the last couple of years, and they've gone into various private paddocks and land. But this was the 1st time we've really done it at scale on public land.

249 00:40:16.120 --> 00:40:38.230 Ben Wielgus: the hedges. This is a hedgerows. They were planted 3 deep, 50 cm apart, and you can see that we decided to try and create a more natural curve, because what it will do is it will create a great windbreak, but it will create natural and different habitats in the leaves of the hedgerows rather than being straight. And it's just a fun thing to walk through. It's sort of a double thickness path.

250 00:40:38.420 --> 00:40:50.950 Ben Wielgus: We took local pizza boxes from from one of the local airbnbs. There was an awful lot of them, and we got free bark mulch from a very good website that arranges free bark chips just happened to be delivered.

251 00:40:51.640 --> 00:40:52.840 Ben Wielgus: It took us about

252 00:40:52.970 --> 00:41:11.809 Ben Wielgus: 4 h for 60 people to plant 800 trees, but what we found was it took longer than it should have done, because you get a lot of people at the start, and then they dwindle out. After a couple of hours, so it was a bit of a stretch, and I think if I was to do it again, I would plan on each person planting

253 00:41:11.950 --> 00:41:15.829 Ben Wielgus: 10 to 20 trees rather than the stretch we had.

254 00:41:16.020 --> 00:41:18.630 Ben Wielgus: But it was great, really, really good.

255 00:41:18.750 --> 00:41:22.489 Ben Wielgus: Clearly, people will turn out for cake and tree planting.

256 00:41:22.890 --> 00:41:25.210 Ben Wielgus: and it didn't cost us a penny.

257 00:41:25.560 --> 00:41:39.810 Ben Wielgus: Similarly a team member cleared out the overgrown hedge, and we found an old gate, and our local council depot donated a free metal gate to allow pedestrians because they wanted something that was wheelchair accessible.

258 00:41:39.960 --> 00:42:05.539 Ben Wielgus: I mean, arguably, that ground's not great for wheelchairs, but they've had that, and they have loads of these usually sat around in the yard, and the thing that cost the Council a lot of money is paying a contract to come out and install them, and we're fortunate in that. We have a couple of volunteers who are footpath wardens. So they turned out and put a gate in here on the left, the overgrown one, and then they also fitted a new one on the right as well. So people can walk through this field.

259 00:42:06.680 --> 00:42:29.630 Ben Wielgus: As I say, the the community turned out and donated a bunch of stuff when the school was going to build bug hotels and getting the school down, there is obviously great, for the kids. Teachers love it because it's just down the road from the school. But it's another way of demonstrating that we're bringing the community into the area. And then it makes the parents curious about coming and visiting what the school kids have done. So again, it's helping people get down to this, this nature reserve.

260 00:42:30.190 --> 00:42:56.089 Ben Wielgus: and then we've got donated from one of the Bumblebee Conservation Trusts a group of wildflower mixers. So we hired a a turf stripper, using some of the Parish Council funds, strips and turf, and we've sown wildflower seeds to see which mix takes best. Unfortunately, we sowed it before that really big drought we had earlier in the year, so they didn't do brilliantly, and we should have got the water supply to the Nature Reserve sorted sooner.

261 00:42:56.820 --> 00:43:06.779 Ben Wielgus: as you can see from the photo on the left, which was taken a few weeks after this one on the right. We didn't really have a problem with wildflowers. In the end, it turned out they just naturally were enjoying appearing

262 00:43:07.920 --> 00:43:25.289 Ben Wielgus: in terms of what's coming up. The idea is is, we've in fact, on Monday just installed for really large picnic benches, and they weren't very expensive. And we think a local business will sponsor those. And that's the idea is to allow the kids to come down and have outdoor lessons on the benches.

263 00:43:25.800 --> 00:43:42.790 Ben Wielgus: We're going to try and use some Council funds or a grant from the council from Fwag, probably, who are the local alliance for nature conservation on farms to come along with a digger and put some ponds in the fields, and we think that we used to be one, and it's filled in. So we can fix that.

264 00:43:43.190 --> 00:43:59.819 Ben Wielgus: We've been given even more trees by a trees for schools campaign, and that school is going to come down and plant those. And we definitely want to kind of engage with more people on this. On this, through the next environment day which we're going to experiment on in September

265 00:44:00.670 --> 00:44:22.999 Ben Wielgus: last couple of slides, and then we can go to Q. And A. I guess you want to know how we did it. Well, hopefully, I've sort of dropped some hints on that, but it really is a small group of people coordinating it, and then, each of them breaking off and doing the thing they're passionate about rather than making somebody do something they don't want to do. It was really about saying, Okay, we're going to enable you to do the thing you care about with us

266 00:44:23.020 --> 00:44:38.560 Ben Wielgus: owl boxes, whether it's wildlife, friendly seed planting, whether it's surveys, whether it's about fixing gates. Each one of those projects I showed you is actually led by a different member of the group, and they just shout for help if they need it, and and it seems to work really well.

267 00:44:39.400 --> 00:44:43.730 Ben Wielgus: If I was to. If I was to bake the cake again in terms of my recipe.

268 00:44:44.413 --> 00:44:47.306 Ben Wielgus: It does need that, that enthusiastic volunteers.

269 00:44:47.960 --> 00:44:58.230 Ben Wielgus: they they definitely Graham. Will you agree with me? They are a character full bunch, but it's quite a diverse group as well, and and therefore it's great because people get involved in different things.

270 00:44:59.640 --> 00:45:27.410 Ben Wielgus: Getting a manageable patch of land is useful. The fact that we had some land was was very, very helpful. 6 acres has proven a bit much. I think we're currently focusing on 3 acres. The other 3, rd we'll do the other 3 acres. We'll just get a farmer in to take the grass later in the year, but we'll be able to move into it eventually, if you can't get land. I know this is this is one of the biggest challenging things. This land's expensive. It's about 10,000 to 12,000 pounds an acre. In most communities

271 00:45:27.610 --> 00:45:40.250 Ben Wielgus: I've met similar groups doing similar things who've taken on the management of land that's owned by the water authority. Sometimes private land can be ceded over, although I definitely say you'd want a long term contract for that.

272 00:45:40.280 --> 00:46:03.110 Ben Wielgus: and it is possible to try and crowdfund or raise money to buy it, because if you're in a parish council that has a decent set of reserves, or if you want to boost your precept for the year, it's not too difficult in most places to find 10 or 20 grand. If a patch of land comes up, we've even found people who are eager to donate the land. So our local Friendly Society has several acres of their own.

273 00:46:03.180 --> 00:46:17.619 Ben Wielgus: and they don't want to manage it anymore. They want to hand it over for something that's community good. And we're we're having serious conversations. Now about how we also manage that land for nature right now. It's a little bit too much work. But we're looking for options.

274 00:46:18.370 --> 00:46:31.959 Ben Wielgus: A big thing for us was getting people together, both as a community, but also as as a kind of coordinating group to decide what we want the land to be. So it was very interesting that it was very clear nobody wanted it for food production.

275 00:46:32.390 --> 00:46:41.879 Ben Wielgus: Nobody wanted it as a as a tree nursery or a wildflower seed nursery, which would have been amazing. But it's a lot of work to do that, and you'd need a larger group of volunteers.

276 00:46:42.610 --> 00:46:53.460 Ben Wielgus: We didn't want it as a sports ground, and right now we don't want it as a place to walk your dogs off leash, but possibly we're sort of allowing them to walk them on leash, because it was just driving a lot of footfall through there.

277 00:46:53.890 --> 00:46:55.820 Ben Wielgus: Outdoor classroom was key.

278 00:46:56.170 --> 00:47:17.690 Ben Wielgus: and then going beyond that, we also were advised to set up a little charter where we talk about the things that might lead to us falling out in the future. So, in particular, what counts as a weed our power tools involved, are we allowed to use weed, killer, and all those little things where different philosophies of nature might cause us a bit of a problem.

279 00:47:17.980 --> 00:47:24.720 Ben Wielgus: And that's certainly we found that's where temperatures could flare thankfully. We never really had that. But

280 00:47:24.840 --> 00:47:46.289 Ben Wielgus: imagine that someone comes and says, Well, let's spray it with weeds to get a weed killer to get rid of dock leaves, or I'll bring along, my my Bunsen burner, flamethrower thing to burn the weeds off. What does that look like? Similarly, what do we do with the grass? If we have to cut the grass, do we leave it to rot? Do we take it away? So all these things, by sorting them out early on in the process. We kind of got everybody on side.

281 00:47:47.380 --> 00:47:53.979 Ben Wielgus: And we also knew that going into this, we're only 6 months in. And we've been very lucky. We've been able to achieve a fair amount in that time.

282 00:47:53.980 --> 00:48:18.550 Ben Wielgus: But if we hadn't done anything by now, 6 months in, I think the chair and members of the community might be asking us, why are we not doing anything with this land given? It's cost the Parish Council 250 pounds so far this year in lost rent. So you need a few early win projects and getting that group of people together to plant the trees again. I think that you know. Lots of people were taken aback by how many people turned up for that, and how much fun it was. And it was a great half day.

283 00:48:18.590 --> 00:48:19.740 Ben Wielgus: really, really good.

284 00:48:20.420 --> 00:48:26.290 Ben Wielgus: The other thing is. And I'd say that certainly where our group has had challenges is

285 00:48:26.620 --> 00:48:32.170 Ben Wielgus: one person feeling like they're taking on all of the work, and that that

286 00:48:32.790 --> 00:48:37.120 Ben Wielgus: that created resentment both in the person who felt like they were taking on all the work

287 00:48:37.360 --> 00:48:50.890 Ben Wielgus: and in lots of other people in the group who maybe felt they were doing some things, and it was they would like more recognition for that. And I think both parts of that debate

288 00:48:51.030 --> 00:48:51.890 Ben Wielgus: merits.

289 00:48:52.110 --> 00:49:16.439 Ben Wielgus: and I think sometimes taking on too much at once, can scare people off, and therefore we try to keep it very, very simple. What are the 2 or 3 things we're going to do in the next 6 months. And who wants to take on those? And it's okay. If you're not feeling like you can manage anything right now, because sometimes life gets in the way the kids are sick. The parents are sick. The business needs some more focus. So, being really careful not to rush into it and making sure there's enough people.

290 00:49:16.680 --> 00:49:25.900 Ben Wielgus: and that you're kind of setting your ambition to meet the the time and availability of everybody, because I think the group have done an amazing job of of running the Nature reserve.

291 00:49:26.180 --> 00:49:33.230 Ben Wielgus: But I I sort of wish we hadn't had little fallouts over the workload, falling on different people.

292 00:49:34.920 --> 00:49:49.300 Ben Wielgus: slice up and share it around. I've pretty much talked about, and don't worry if it's not perfect, you know we none of us mind soggy bottom bread sometimes, but you know there are things about the nature reserve that are not brilliant right now. We lost a number of the saplings that we planted during the drought.

293 00:49:49.410 --> 00:49:58.879 Ben Wielgus: but it would have put too much pressure on the people to rush around it every night and water them with hand carried watering cans. We just had to accept that we were going to lose some.

294 00:49:59.110 --> 00:50:02.450 Ben Wielgus: and ultimately I think, that saved a lot of people's sanity.

295 00:50:03.470 --> 00:50:15.170 Ben Wielgus: The final question, I know I'm probably getting near to the end. Here is, how do we do better? So, reflecting on everything we've learned on this, and reflecting on that recipe, what are the key things that would maybe change. And

296 00:50:15.851 --> 00:50:23.139 Ben Wielgus: it's it's really these, these 6 things, the governance and plans that I showed you. People have very little interest in, that.

297 00:50:23.610 --> 00:50:47.270 Ben Wielgus: There might be one or 2 individuals who don't mind it still get on with it. But most people will get involved because they want to do something. They want to plant a tree. They want to do those actual things that make a difference. That has unfortunately meant that I find myself doing a lot of the admin. So there usually has to be somebody who takes that on. And when I created the charter that wrote up the discussions we'd had around what we can and can't do on the land.

298 00:50:47.380 --> 00:50:53.589 Ben Wielgus: I haven't had a single person feedback on that in the last 2 or 3 weeks. So I think, just bear in mind that

299 00:50:53.960 --> 00:51:06.629 Ben Wielgus: the motivation to get involved with this stuff is not usually for the bureaucracy, and therefore minimizing the bureaucracy, is a big thing. Most people will get involved with writing a Grant application once in a while, because it will help deliver the project they care about.

300 00:51:07.490 --> 00:51:28.050 Ben Wielgus: despite the fact that they don't really like the paperwork and the governance, the process that we went through to discuss what is and isn't allowed on the nature reserve, what it's for and what it's not. It created a real consensus in the group, which meant that when people were spinning off and doing actions, it was much easier to say, Yeah, of course the school can come in and do a nature reserve

301 00:51:28.300 --> 00:51:52.649 Ben Wielgus: a bughouse. Of course the school can get involved with building some benches and do outdoor classrooms. I think that helped so much, and I think now the the groups seen the practicality of the use of it. I think people are not happier with the debate we had around dogs, so no dogs off leash. But dogs on leash following the paths is okay, and I think it's just made our lives so much easier.

302 00:51:53.641 --> 00:52:05.469 Ben Wielgus: For those of you who read Animal Farm. You'll you'll remember the quote that everybody is equal, but some are more equal than others. It's slight tongue in cheek reference, but we we are running the group democratically.

303 00:52:05.970 --> 00:52:06.860 Ben Wielgus: but

304 00:52:07.210 --> 00:52:21.519 Ben Wielgus: by the nature of the fact some people are more involved and more proactive. What they want to do tends to get done because they're the ones making it happen. And there is a chair role there always is, even though we didn't want to have one.

305 00:52:21.540 --> 00:52:40.649 Ben Wielgus: And that chair role tends to guide and shape things. So again, we're sort of dividing the responsibilities that some do grants and some do tree planting. Some do governance. But I think you should bear in mind that no group will be 100% equal. There will always be 2 or 3 people who tend to guide and shape it, and that's okay.

306 00:52:40.770 --> 00:52:43.230 Ben Wielgus: But making sure everyone's voices are recognized is Key.

307 00:52:43.890 --> 00:53:05.239 Ben Wielgus: Watch out for martyrs again. Slight tongue in cheek. But you know there are certainly folks out there who are purists, or who want to throw themselves into saving the world, and what I found was that tends to lead to burnout the folks who really really want to get it done as fast as possible, then are the folks who who feel like they're overwhelmed and can't get it all done so, finding the balance between

308 00:53:05.340 --> 00:53:18.059 Ben Wielgus: slow and steady, wins the race, and harnessing the energy and the enthusiasm quickly enough where it doesn't fizzle out before we get stuff done has been really key. And what I've found is it's sort of ebbed and flowed throughout the year, based on what people are doing.

309 00:53:18.630 --> 00:53:21.570 Ben Wielgus: I'd also say that doing this.

310 00:53:22.090 --> 00:53:26.180 Ben Wielgus: apart from having to buy land, which, if you have to buy land, that's difficult.

311 00:53:26.320 --> 00:53:36.279 Ben Wielgus: There's just money around like it's been really easy to get a couple of 1,000 pounds out of the Parish Council. So that's that's 1 or 2% of our budgets. And if you're a bigger council.

312 00:53:36.340 --> 00:53:56.550 Ben Wielgus: I mean, you know, a couple of grand is not a lot of money, but there's also people want to sponsor this. I've had people turn up at my house and give me a whole pallet full of trees, because they've dug them out of their garden, or they found once the squirrels have planted wildflowers, seeds, a little bit trickier. Wildflower plugs seems to be impossible to get without paying for them. But for the basic stuff

313 00:53:56.660 --> 00:54:05.159 Ben Wielgus: it hasn't been a problem. We haven't yet bought any machinery, because there seems to be people all over the place who will lend us it, and occasionally we've had to hire it, but that's 50 pounds.

314 00:54:06.380 --> 00:54:28.520 Ben Wielgus: But the tricky stuff is I alluded to earlier. If you haven't got a bit of land getting that bit of land is the tricky piece. But again we found that churches, churchyards, the Friendly Society, an elderly person who maybe wants to leave a legacy for the village, a farmer who might find there's a corner of their land that's unproductive, the local water authority. There are

315 00:54:28.710 --> 00:54:31.210 Ben Wielgus: often opportunities that emerge. But

316 00:54:31.460 --> 00:54:44.009 Ben Wielgus: doing that consultation I talked about the beginning seems to be the only way to find out about it getting out there and talking to people. If we hadn't done our environment day we wouldn't have learned that the Friendly Society had a bit of land that they were looking to have someone use.

317 00:54:44.670 --> 00:54:47.920 Ben Wielgus: And and as I say, that that quick win

318 00:54:49.190 --> 00:55:06.800 Ben Wielgus: showing people that people want to turn up for. This stuff has really won over more and more people in the community because a good, successful group attracts more people. I found that when I was a school governor, a school that's doing really well in the ofsted inspections attracts governors, schools struggling in Ofsted.

319 00:55:06.990 --> 00:55:36.139 Ben Wielgus: It's more difficult to attract volunteers, and I think it's just the same on a nature reserve that if we make sure we're communicating every month. Look how cool this is. Come and see the flowers. We've just built some benches that gets so many more people getting involved. And just last week we had a lady who lives in the village runs a forest school in the neighboring village. She volunteered to get involved, which is exactly what we want. I sort of wonder why she hasn't been involved before now. But obviously, I think because it's now a reality. People see it as a real thing because of the Comms. We've done.

320 00:55:36.190 --> 00:55:40.029 Ben Wielgus: They're now like eager to get involved because everybody wants to be on the winning team.

321 00:55:42.010 --> 00:56:05.289 Ben Wielgus: I'm going to stop, because, as you can hear, my voice is starting to fail me. I hope everybody is still with me. You're also on camera, actually, which I'm always impressed at for this. So, Graham, I have no idea if that's what you wanted. Everyone's been very quiet. And I now see there's a chat that I missed. We're recording. Okay, that's good. So I have 10 min of your time for you to grill me. Challenge me, or ask me if the recipe tastes good.

322 00:56:06.730 --> 00:56:24.739 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - IoW: Start by saying that I think you smashed it. I think you lived up to all the hype that we gave you, and well done. I will take action against you separately for mentioning earlier on that I was part of this group, and then you put up a slide, saying, the group is full of nuts, I would

323 00:56:25.310 --> 00:56:32.299 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - IoW: quite sure where that's based on. But never mind. Well done! I think it was really fun. And let's now move to the question. So Stuart.

324 00:56:32.890 --> 00:56:35.699 Cllr Stuart Withington, Great Dunmow, Essex: I I just like to thank Ben that that was

325 00:56:36.100 --> 00:56:44.210 Cllr Stuart Withington, Great Dunmow, Essex: excellent presentation. And I'm really impressed with the community engagement that you managed to generate.

326 00:56:44.956 --> 00:56:46.089 Cllr Stuart Withington, Great Dunmow, Essex: I I

327 00:56:47.240 --> 00:56:56.640 Cllr Stuart Withington, Great Dunmow, Essex: find, speaking to many sort of climate and environment groups that that is one of their major problems. And it's certainly a problem I've experienced.

328 00:56:58.310 --> 00:57:08.959 Cllr Stuart Withington, Great Dunmow, Essex: and I was very interested that your group fairly, rapidly split into an environment group and a climate and energy sort of group.

329 00:57:09.220 --> 00:57:15.069 Cllr Stuart Withington, Great Dunmow, Essex: And again I found exactly the same thing happening with our Stansted group.

330 00:57:15.430 --> 00:57:23.270 Cllr Stuart Withington, Great Dunmow, Essex: And the environment group turned out to be a lot more, a lot bigger and a lot more enthusiastic than the energy group.

331 00:57:23.700 --> 00:57:27.049 Cllr Stuart Withington, Great Dunmow, Essex: And I think people can see the environment

332 00:57:27.330 --> 00:57:32.539 Cllr Stuart Withington, Great Dunmow, Essex: that they can't see Co 2, and Energy, and this, that and the other, and it doesn't

333 00:57:32.780 --> 00:57:36.640 Cllr Stuart Withington, Great Dunmow, Essex: appear on their day to day radar. So I think that was great.

334 00:57:37.425 --> 00:57:43.520 Cllr Stuart Withington, Great Dunmow, Essex: A couple of things about your nature reserve. I didn't notice any composting area.

335 00:57:45.170 --> 00:57:45.620 Ben Wielgus: Yeah.

336 00:57:45.650 --> 00:57:56.880 Cllr Stuart Withington, Great Dunmow, Essex: I think a composting area would be a great, a great addition. And I think it's a great sort of teaching thing for children just to have a look at compost. What's in it and

337 00:57:57.010 --> 00:57:58.130 Cllr Stuart Withington, Great Dunmow, Essex: value it?

338 00:57:58.410 --> 00:58:10.488 Cllr Stuart Withington, Great Dunmow, Essex: And the the other bit I I'm not sure was present was any wildlife corridors connecting your nature. Reserve to other sort of nature bits in the

339 00:58:11.040 --> 00:58:12.229 Cllr Stuart Withington, Great Dunmow, Essex: in the parish.

340 00:58:12.970 --> 00:58:25.509 Ben Wielgus: That's a really really good questions. So yeah, you're actually right about the splits, although there is, there's quite a lot of crossover. But we found the community interest was very split, and I think if if any of you have ever kind of

341 00:58:26.490 --> 00:58:29.539 Ben Wielgus: done development work or being involved with charities in Africa.

342 00:58:29.750 --> 00:58:38.169 Ben Wielgus: Clean water gets 10 times the funding that clean sanitation does, because water and kids drinking clean water is a lot more

343 00:58:38.240 --> 00:59:03.769 Ben Wielgus: public facing a lot more engaging than toilets are. Yet. Toilets are the biggest source of debts. So I think it's the same for us. As you say, nature, and planting a tree feels like an instant gratification for a lot of people, whereas insulating your loft or putting solar panels on the roof, not only is it more expensive and more challenging. But it is, it weirdly doesn't feel as rewarding in the short term

344 00:59:04.151 --> 00:59:12.900 Ben Wielgus: composting. Brilliant idea. Yeah, I mean, we we haven't actually taken anything from the land yet, or cut anything yet, but at the end of the year we will.

345 00:59:14.350 --> 00:59:17.620 Ben Wielgus: We are going to take all the grass off and take it away.

346 00:59:17.880 --> 00:59:24.140 Ben Wielgus: But we could compost some in the corner, because we want to reduce the nutrient levels on the land for the wildflowers to be able to get in.

347 00:59:24.320 --> 00:59:32.350 Ben Wielgus: Yeah. But I like that idea of of a compost zone for school kids. So I think if we get a few pallets in the corner. It's a really good idea.

348 00:59:32.930 --> 00:59:39.780 Cllr Stuart Withington, Great Dunmow, Essex: And leave mold. I I've actually got 3 acres here, and I've got more leaf mold than I know what to do.

349 00:59:40.250 --> 00:59:46.779 Ben Wielgus: Well, send. Send some our way, isn't. I'm not too far from Essex, because, yeah, it's obviously amazing for make a seed compost

350 00:59:47.315 --> 00:59:52.434 Ben Wielgus: your second question, actually kind of links to what? What? Louise has asked. So

351 00:59:53.120 --> 01:00:08.680 Ben Wielgus: we are. We are on a number. So, for those of you haven't seen it in the chat, Louisa said. Did you take advice on the nature reserve from the Wildlife Trust? Absolutely. So. We've had 4 surveys of land by various groups, our local wildlife trust

352 01:00:08.970 --> 01:00:24.039 Ben Wielgus: reimagining the levels, who provide the seeds, and they look for where you can put trees and the kinds of trees. That will do well. The the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, because we're on a wildlife corridor for a very rare bee called the Cardabee the Red Cardabee. I think it is.

353 01:00:24.360 --> 01:00:26.070 Ben Wielgus: and between

354 01:00:26.320 --> 01:00:39.689 Ben Wielgus: I think it might be curry rival. Actually, I think they have them. And then, somewhere off on the other side of us has them, and we've as a community been very consciously planting bee mixes that are appealing to this bee to create corridors for it.

355 01:00:39.720 --> 01:01:07.240 Ben Wielgus: So they've done that. And then one of my favorite charities is a charity based in Yeovil, called able to achieve, which takes young people with learning challenges and various different developmental challenges and trains them to scythe, to wheelbarrow, to do. Nature counts, and they've been out and done a survey on our land as well. Each group's kind of looked for different things, but they've been really good to sort of get involved, and

356 01:01:07.240 --> 01:01:13.840 Ben Wielgus: our local Wildlife Trust runs the Pcnr. The private community Nature reserves group, which is about a hundred.

357 01:01:14.150 --> 01:01:42.200 Ben Wielgus: Nature reserves in our community that are either owned by individuals or run by community groups, but are not official nature reserves. So we all kind of link with each other to figure out how we do that. I think one challenge for our land is. It's in the middle of fields, and next to a golf course, but the other is, it is a sort of stepping stone between 2 or 3 of those, and I think I showed you that the little reserve at the top of the map, which is that the individuals private one, and then there are a few on the way as well. So yeah, I think there's

358 01:01:42.690 --> 01:01:48.680 Ben Wielgus: tons of opportunity for things like compost bins and corridors. We just need to get some trees growing. I think

359 01:01:49.180 --> 01:01:49.870 Ben Wielgus: so. Thank you, Steve.

360 01:01:49.870 --> 01:01:50.400 Cllr Stuart Withington, Great Dunmow, Essex: Thanks.

361 01:01:50.570 --> 01:01:52.239 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - IoW: Moving on to Gary. Please.

362 01:01:55.120 --> 01:01:57.950 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Oh, yeah, thanks, Ben.

363 01:01:59.140 --> 01:02:02.390 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Just want to say, 1st of all, that

364 01:02:03.240 --> 01:02:06.990 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: we do wildflower plug planting here in caution.

365 01:02:07.520 --> 01:02:14.859 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: We've done that for the last couple of years where I've got volunteers to to grow them at home and then bring them out when they're ready and plant them.

366 01:02:15.070 --> 01:02:20.450 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: To be honest with you. It's it's a lot of effort. It's it's always been quite a lot of effort, and people

367 01:02:20.690 --> 01:02:46.789 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: kind of brought along plants that haven't been ready to go out, and that kind of thing. And and this year it's been a bit of a struggle, because the weather's been so dry, so to managing that as well. So I just say that. But it's a good opportunity for people who aren't quite so active and able to get out and kind of plant trees and stuff, but they can grow some wild flowers at home, and then bring them and let other people can plant them out stuff. So that's a that's an option. I just want to ask you.

368 01:02:47.820 --> 01:02:53.169 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: what are you doing about watering at the moment because we're now looking like another big, dry.

369 01:02:53.540 --> 01:02:55.530 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: hot period is going to hit.

370 01:02:55.760 --> 01:03:00.629 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Have you got plans in place to deal with the watering situation.

371 01:03:01.070 --> 01:03:16.709 Ben Wielgus: We do? Yeah. So you saw we were mulching with the the cardboard and the wood chips. Unfortunately, we ran out of both, so we got about 78% of everything mulched, and also that will help keep water in the soil. Once it's there we have

372 01:03:16.860 --> 01:03:39.349 Ben Wielgus: found there is a farmer's pipe, a blue pipe in the hedgerow that we've known about for a while, and we've had permission from the farmer now to connect that pipe into this field that we're in, and either feed a trough that we can manually fill up or feed a large hose. Or you know those Ibcs, the big, clear bulk containers that we could put on there and fill up.

373 01:03:39.650 --> 01:04:06.770 Ben Wielgus: He did say he wanted it metering, but he's sort of now turned around and said, no, it doesn't matter. I'll just give you the water. It's fine, because water is not that expensive? If you don't use too much of it. Obviously you need to conserve it. But it's funny if the advice from the people who gave us the trees, who plant trees all over the county reimagining the levels they're called, they said. We'll just put them in the ground, and they'll fend for themselves. And yeah, you'll lose some, but we'll replace them if they die.

374 01:04:07.160 --> 01:04:07.895 Ben Wielgus: and

375 01:04:09.520 --> 01:04:31.349 Ben Wielgus: you know you just kind of have to accept it, because the amount of watering you'd have to do to keep them alive is more effort than replanting a few. I actually did my own 800 plants a couple of years ago, and we did water them twice during the drought, and it has made a phenomenal difference to survival rate, and I do know we've lost about 50 so far on the land, mainly of the hazels. I don't know why.

376 01:04:31.520 --> 01:04:45.770 Ben Wielgus: so we are mulling over getting up there and just giving them a rescue water sometime in the next week or 2 from from this hose. But it goes to what I was saying about. We'll only do it if there's people willing to do it and to put their hand up.

377 01:04:46.150 --> 01:04:53.049 Ben Wielgus: I'm not going to force this on anybody. I'm not going to guilt trip on anybody, and if we lose the trees we lose the trees.

378 01:04:53.260 --> 01:04:59.340 Ben Wielgus: But it was amazing how well, they most of them did survive in that last drought. So it's a

379 01:04:59.670 --> 01:05:04.810 Ben Wielgus: it's a difficult balance, but I'd rather lose the trees than lose the volunteers.

380 01:05:05.340 --> 01:05:08.209 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: And like you can say, and like you say, you can always get more trees.

381 01:05:08.700 --> 01:05:10.460 Ben Wielgus: There is no shortage.

382 01:05:10.460 --> 01:05:16.020 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: We're the same here. It's like, you know, constantly getting messages, saying, Yeah, do you want some trees? Do you want some trees?

383 01:05:16.330 --> 01:05:17.200 Ben Wielgus: Yeah, yeah.

384 01:05:17.200 --> 01:05:24.490 Ben Wielgus: yeah, we know we've got another 100 coming in October, which would be great because hundreds manageable, I think 800 was bit ambitious today.

385 01:05:24.910 --> 01:05:26.450 Ben Wielgus: Well, thanks. Gary.

386 01:05:26.830 --> 01:05:28.830 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - IoW: Move on to Matthew. Please.

387 01:05:31.590 --> 01:05:38.070 Matthew Geen - Curry Rivel PC: Hi, yes. Written list of questions. I think other people have already asked them.

388 01:05:39.130 --> 01:05:48.139 Matthew Geen - Curry Rivel PC: So Sean's point, yeah, combining biodiversity and sustainability. So we're trying to set a similar

389 01:05:48.650 --> 01:05:53.759 Matthew Geen - Curry Rivel PC: group here which I'm calling the biodiversity and Sustainability working group.

390 01:05:55.270 --> 01:06:00.540 Matthew Geen - Curry Rivel PC: And and you're right. Nearly everybody on the team wants to get involved with

391 01:06:01.050 --> 01:06:11.220 Matthew Geen - Curry Rivel PC: biodiversity, not necessarily sustainability, but great idea to have involved the sustainability in

392 01:06:11.330 --> 01:06:16.320 Matthew Geen - Curry Rivel PC: days when you involve the the public and we've done that we had

393 01:06:16.550 --> 01:06:20.089 Matthew Geen - Curry Rivel PC: on a couple of years ago, on particularly on heating

394 01:06:20.220 --> 01:06:25.779 Matthew Geen - Curry Rivel PC: and energy stuff. And you can get some really good advice from of this

395 01:06:26.250 --> 01:06:29.430 Matthew Geen - Curry Rivel PC: several organizations who will come along and give that advice.

396 01:06:29.940 --> 01:06:32.319 Matthew Geen - Curry Rivel PC: And that's kind of thing the way to do. I don't think

397 01:06:35.130 --> 01:06:42.389 Matthew Geen - Curry Rivel PC: a local group like this can do much. You know, we looked at community energy schemes and that kind of stuff, and it's all just

398 01:06:42.650 --> 01:06:43.839 Matthew Geen - Curry Rivel PC: just too much.

399 01:06:44.460 --> 01:06:48.070 Matthew Geen - Curry Rivel PC: So that's that talks on the nature day.

400 01:06:50.010 --> 01:06:54.819 Matthew Geen - Curry Rivel PC: How did you find that works? Because I kind of feel that kind of stopping

401 01:06:55.300 --> 01:07:00.950 Matthew Geen - Curry Rivel PC: the thing of people coming along to stalls around the edge and

402 01:07:02.970 --> 01:07:14.230 Matthew Geen - Curry Rivel PC: standing up and giving the talk could be an issue. I noticed that long sorry at Stokes and Gregory have a very good environment day, and they have that happening in a separate room which kind of works quite well.

403 01:07:14.480 --> 01:07:16.400 Matthew Geen - Curry Rivel PC: What was your experience? There.

404 01:07:16.960 --> 01:07:27.910 Ben Wielgus: Exactly, she said. Actually, Matthew, that the 1st year we did it we had the stalls, and then everyone got an hour to wander around, and then we sort of had to get everybody to go and sit down, and we gave a talk.

405 01:07:28.060 --> 01:07:54.849 Ben Wielgus: and then we repeated it in the afternoon. But the number of attendees in the afternoon was very low, and it was quite hard to get them all to settle down in the second year. We only did the morning talk, because the afternoon talk, you know, it didn't seem to make sense, and exactly to say, like people were. So into the conversations you ended up struggling to hear, because not everybody came and joined the the presentation. If we had a separate room we'd have used it. But we don't. We don't have that kind of space in our hall

406 01:07:54.960 --> 01:08:19.499 Ben Wielgus: this year. I'm mulling over doing talks again. But what I find is people. It's the enthusiasm to connect with neighbors to meet with people, and the stuff that was really powerful was, we did have a few people, I think, like center for sustainable energy, and Somerset Council came along on energy in the 1st year, and that was good, but they were more interested in learning what their neighbors and their peers were doing so. Oh, I put solar panels on my roof. Oh, how did you find them? Oh, I've got an air source heat pump.

407 01:08:19.680 --> 01:08:21.500 Ben Wielgus: So I think there's something about.

408 01:08:21.710 --> 01:08:27.040 Ben Wielgus: If your neighbor does it, you trust it more, and then you go and find a supplier. So I

409 01:08:28.189 --> 01:08:49.439 Ben Wielgus: I think, talks had a place, and on both years it was me and the Nature trust. So the Wildlife trust. But I didn't bring anybody else on, and I don't think we do. Lots of them again, because I think it is that interaction on tables that made the difference. We are thinking about leading a walking tour around the Nature reserve this year. It might be weather dependent, though, because it will be October.

410 01:08:49.970 --> 01:08:50.920 Matthew Geen - Curry Rivel PC: Yeah, yeah.

411 01:08:51.060 --> 01:08:58.150 Matthew Geen - Curry Rivel PC: yeah, that's great. That's kind of what I thought, I'm gonna contact you directly, because there's a whole bunch of

412 01:08:58.790 --> 01:09:01.429 Matthew Geen - Curry Rivel PC: things where we can kind of work together things.

413 01:09:02.069 --> 01:09:02.769 Ben Wielgus: Wouldn't absolutely.

414 01:09:02.770 --> 01:09:04.830 Matthew Geen - Curry Rivel PC: Work with can can help you.

415 01:09:05.330 --> 01:09:09.700 Matthew Geen - Curry Rivel PC: And yeah, so I'll contact you directly on bunch of stuff like that.

416 01:09:09.700 --> 01:09:11.049 Ben Wielgus: Thank you. That's great.

417 01:09:12.300 --> 01:09:14.050 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - IoW: David, can we move to you? Please.

418 01:09:15.890 --> 01:09:23.609 David Morgan-Jones Ewshot PC: Oh, yeah, good afternoon. This is just a thought out of sorry, for out of the left we're doing some work on how to use.

419 01:09:23.990 --> 01:09:29.069 David Morgan-Jones Ewshot PC: how to integrate biodiversity and ground mounted solar systems.

420 01:09:30.107 --> 01:09:32.200 David Morgan-Jones Ewshot PC: And particularly agrivoltaics.

421 01:09:33.140 --> 01:09:42.399 David Morgan-Jones Ewshot PC: So you might want to think about potentially, if you're not making maximum use of the ground. Another ground about putting

422 01:09:43.859 --> 01:09:45.560 David Morgan-Jones Ewshot PC: low area

423 01:09:46.939 --> 01:09:57.539 David Morgan-Jones Ewshot PC: ground mounted systems because the look they've changed the regulations on actually installing small less than 5 megawatt units. And you could actually develop

424 01:09:58.039 --> 01:10:01.629 David Morgan-Jones Ewshot PC: a system that allows you to move towards net 0

425 01:10:01.860 --> 01:10:09.280 David Morgan-Jones Ewshot PC: maximize. The use still retain biodiversity. And use that part of a much wider net. 0. Mix.

426 01:10:11.010 --> 01:10:12.870 Ben Wielgus: An interesting idea, actually, and

427 01:10:13.250 --> 01:10:27.059 Ben Wielgus: I wouldn't immediately go with the Nature reserve because of the location. But there are a couple of other community owned fields where we could do that, and agrivoltaics is very cool. So if you look into that, that's quite advanced, David, because it's very cutting edge to sort of see how you combine those things.

428 01:10:27.060 --> 01:10:27.480 David Morgan-Jones Ewshot PC: Yep.

429 01:10:27.480 --> 01:10:34.119 Ben Wielgus: For those of you who haven't heard of agrivoltaics. It's essentially solar panels with crops growing under them, and you benefit from the shade.

430 01:10:34.860 --> 01:10:35.890 Ben Wielgus: Texas.

431 01:10:37.740 --> 01:10:43.019 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - IoW: I am gonna have to head off in a short while, so I don't know, Graham. We've got any other questions. I can't see the

432 01:10:43.020 --> 01:10:43.980 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - IoW: I'm Joe.

433 01:10:44.460 --> 01:10:45.450 Ben Wielgus: Going to jail.

434 01:10:48.110 --> 01:10:48.670 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - IoW: Yeah.

435 01:10:48.900 --> 01:10:56.070 Jo Stone, Oxon: Just a really quick question. Your survey. Was it online, or was it hand delivered to every house.

436 01:10:56.840 --> 01:10:59.340 Ben Wielgus: We in the past. I've done both.

437 01:11:00.032 --> 01:11:01.720 Ben Wielgus: This one was.

438 01:11:01.980 --> 01:11:09.489 Ben Wielgus: It was online, and we got it in the newsletters which were hand dropped to all the houses.

439 01:11:09.850 --> 01:11:26.930 Ben Wielgus: I'm trying to think we did have a paper version. Actually, I think it was by collections. If you want a paper version, come and collect one from the village hall kind of thing, so it isn't the most inclusive method. But again it was a balance of what was feasible at the time. We also, I think we promoted it at

440 01:11:27.240 --> 01:11:48.479 Ben Wielgus: Nature day as well again, slightly biased audience. In that case we did have some climate deniers come out of the woodwork. That was interesting. But yeah, it's the more you can do on this engagement stuff to the points made earlier the better. And I think we have a good Facebook group. We have a good paper newsletter, and we have a good digital newsletter now as well.

441 01:11:48.580 --> 01:11:52.210 Ben Wielgus: But, we're never going to get to everybody. And I think.

442 01:11:52.210 --> 01:12:06.339 Jo Stone, Oxon: No, no, I just I just wonder, because we have an argument in our village between online and putting it through people's doors and the other really quick question was, before you did the survey and things you said. It was a couple of counselors and stuff that wanted to set up the group, did you?

443 01:12:06.600 --> 01:12:14.229 Jo Stone, Oxon: How did you get I take it that you, before you did anything, and you had your couple of counselors. Did you also then involve

444 01:12:14.740 --> 01:12:21.999 Jo Stone, Oxon: your neighbours, your pub, the public, before you sort of set up the survey. Were they involved before the survey or.

445 01:12:24.120 --> 01:12:26.389 Ben Wielgus: So the way it manifested was

446 01:12:27.560 --> 01:12:34.669 Ben Wielgus: 2 or 3 of us on the Council were talking about how we really want to do something to help make the villages more sustainable.

447 01:12:35.040 --> 01:13:02.729 Ben Wielgus: and we happened to be chatting with other neighbors about that. And they said, Oh, yeah, that sounds really good. I'd like to be involved, but I don't want to be a counselor, so you know. Shout me if you need me. And the survey we just developed by getting together for 30 min over a cup of tea, chatting about the stuff we want to know. And then somebody kind of put the hand up and said, Okay, I'll go and draft it. They shared it around. It, got edited, and then it went on to survey Monkey again. We tried to keep things very low key, if I'm honest because we, you can make a whole

448 01:13:03.150 --> 01:13:17.510 Ben Wielgus: whole affair out of just governance and data collection and editing. And and so it drives people off. I've found it's it's not like when we do a neighborhood plan, and you have to be really thorough, and you have to get to everybody and prove that this is more. We want to do some cool stuff.

449 01:13:17.590 --> 01:13:41.970 Ben Wielgus: We want to be enabled and know that we're doing stuff that the village isn't going to be against, and we want to prove to others the villages is supportive of this. To justify, then asking for some budget. So, as I say, sometimes you do a survey to say you've done a survey. I know that's really cheeky, but you kind of know where the focus is, but you feel better by having made sure that people are on board, and again it flushes people out of the woodwork. They feel instant interest in it.

450 01:13:42.340 --> 01:13:44.419 Jo Stone, Oxon: That's really, really interesting. Thanks very much.

451 01:13:44.740 --> 01:13:50.989 Ben Wielgus: No problem. If you want a copy of the Survey, Joe, just ping me a note and we can. We can think we've still got the questions somewhere as well.

452 01:13:51.270 --> 01:13:52.190 Jo Stone, Oxon: Great. Thank you.

453 01:13:54.630 --> 01:14:06.137 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - IoW: Ben, thank you so much for that. Great pleasure, and I'm not seeing anyone else asking questions. So I'm going to call this a day, and but it was a great treat to listen to you and

454 01:14:06.640 --> 01:14:12.909 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - IoW: I think it. It filled exactly. The ground that we were looking to do is how the hell do you get started?

455 01:14:13.100 --> 01:14:18.570 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - IoW: So I think you demonstrated that. Very well, thank you, and well done.

456 01:14:19.310 --> 01:14:20.159 Ben Wielgus: Nice to meet you.

457 01:14:20.160 --> 01:14:29.180 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - IoW: Thank you all very much, and we'll see everybody else next week, and as, as always, I've completely forgotten what's coming next week, so I'll let you know later. Take care. Thank you all.

458 01:14:29.700 --> 01:14:30.630 Cllr Stuart Withington, Great Dunmow, Essex: Like bye, bye.

459 01:14:30.630 --> 01:14:31.390 Amanda Pugj: Bye.

Markdown copy of the presentation:

# Great Collaboration 74: Creating your own Nature Reserve
Presenter's name

Ben Wielgus, Long Sutton, Somerset


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About me

Physics and Computer Science

Tour guide

25 years in sustainability with Big corporates


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School Governor: 10 years


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Parish Council: 13 years  # 

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Long Sutton Parish:
Small
3 villages
Elderly
Rural
Reasonably affluent
Pub, shop, school, church
Precept £40 - 50k pa




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The first important question is always– Why?


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The second important question is – What?


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80 survey responses:

Representing ~ 161 people, 18% of the village, 19% of the houses

A good mix of newcomers and lifelong residents

Possible small positive bias to people who feel strongly about environment


Survey response rate is above average for similar surveys that we’ve seen

88% of responses were for households without children


Number of responses:

4 in 5 responses were from people aged 50 and over

Total responses = 78


The majority of respondents (89%) were very or moderately concerned about

climate change and the environment.

Total responses = 79




Number of responses

Seasons/Weather

Countryside/Nature

People feel the climate is changing more than the countryside

But overall more than 7 in 10 see change in both climate and nature

Three quarters of people are very or moderately worried about climate change

affecting the Parish 



What is it that people love about the Parish?

The larger the word appears above, the more people mentioned it in the survey question




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Increasing recycling

Reducing energy usage

Reducing waste

Increasing re-use

Conserving nature and natural habitats

Reducing water usage

Increasing nature and natural habitats

Avoiding pollution

Reducing transport emissions

Protecting our soil

Changing  energy supply

Other

Protecting nature

Fighting climate change

Supporting sustainable development

Reducing waste

Other

Flooding

Community engagement

Local food and sourcing




Protecting nature and fighting climate change are people’s priorities in the Parish




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Overarching and enabling activities

Three focus areas:

Carbon and Energy

Waste and Resources

Nature

Goal : Reduce our dependence on high cost, high carbon fossil fuels through a combination of reducing usage and switching to renewable energy sources

Goal : Improve our consumption of materials, particularly non-renewable ones, and ensure that we can rethink, redesign, reduce, reuse and recycle more to cut
waste and save cost .

Goal :To protect and enhance the animals and plantlife in our community whilst
ensuring we can enjoy the outdoors and produce food and other goods and service
from nature.


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Highlights of the first year

2 environment and nature days held with total of more than 270 visits

Community survey on relative importance of topics

Worked with our lengthsman to explore other practices

Planted trees along edge of cricket pitch

150 saplings and 50 packs of wildflower seeds handed out to residents

Assessment of our best natural assets and opportunities to improve



Goals for the day


More than 50 attendees from the villages

Responding to the survey responses that said nature was of most interest, both in terms of things they like, and things they want to do


Focus on practical and fun with any amount of land but particularly gardens


Excite people about what we can do locally for nature

Have a great day and some fun


Measures:

Encourage people to plant trees and seeds and rewilding


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5 more grant applications for Reimagining the Levels


Get 2 more volunteers for the group to do some thing


Layout of hall


Ben:  Making homes for wildlife


2 Reimaginging the Levels


Kate:  Trees and grants


3  Wildlife Trust


Hannah:  Wildlife in your garden


4 Lou Norman:   Composting & No-Dig


5 Graham: Maps, Friends of the Earth, etc, Local tree cover and nature maps


6 WI #1 Caroline:  100th anniversary


7  WI #2:  WI activities


8 Jo Chesworth and Colin:   Bumblebee Conservation, Bumblebee Walks


9 Owls



10 Gill Include land survey, community engagement etc 

11  Kids: Space for bug house assembly?

Stage:  Seating for approx. 40 people

Tea, coffee and cake

Table 1:   Greetings, Entry

Table 2

Table 3

Table 6

Table 7

Table 8 Consultation on community fields

Table 10



Three main projects in 2024/25


Owl Survey and Boxes

Environment Day

Long Sutton Nature Reserve



2024 Nature and Environment Day


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Bug houses for kids

Sapling giveaway

Free wildflowers

Lots of advice!

 
Long Sutton Nature Reserve Est 2025

 
60 people planted 800 trees and hedges

New gates and access

Bug hotels and wildflowers
 
Benches and signs

New pond and water

areas in the field

More (!) trees and wildflowers

Environment Day 2025

What’s to come in 2025?


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## How
I guess you want to know:   How? (did we do it)


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Recipe for a nature reserve


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Take one small group of enthusiastic volunteers (warning , may contain nuts)


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Addin one manageable patchof land (alternative ingredients may be necessary)



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Choose flavours of activity:   What do you want it to be?


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Agree oven-baking temperature:  Where might the hot temper(atures) flare?


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Be careful about it taking too long:  Show results early enough


## 6.And don’t burn it or the people


Keep everyone onside and energised


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Slice it up to share it around


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Don’t worry if it’s not perfect (soggy bottoms encouraged)


Perhaps the most important question is:  How? (do we do better)


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People don’t like governance and plans:  They want to plant trees

Creating the plan creates consensus

Consensus is something you’ll be grateful for later

George Orwell was right on equality:   Some are more equal than others

Watch out for martyrs:  Protect and appreciate them

There’s lots of money for the small stuff:  Solve for the big stuff at the right time

Getting people involved wins others over

Communicating:  quick wins buy you time

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