Working Groups

As a result of the Shoscombe Parish Plan a number of Working Groups have been set up to address some of the issues that the community requested as priorities for the well-being of our community and village as a whole.  You can find out by looking at these pages under ‘Working Groups’ what is being done by volunteers to improve our micro environment, and you may well be tempted to join a group so that you too can become involved.
We should all feel a responsibility for our surroundings and help look after them.  Please do what you can to help.

Fingerpost restoration

The Shoscombe Fingerpost Working Group are delighted to report that £1500 has already been raised to contribute to the necessary restoration of our four historic parish fingerposts.

This includes £1000 in generous donations sofar from residents and
£500 from the Parish Council CommunityFund.

So we are well on our way to bringing thefingerposts back to life
again, to ensure everyone is clear which waythey are heading!

Some residents have asked how these will be restored.

The good news is that the cast iron bases of the finger posts are all sound and need justlight remedial repair to remove rust and spruce up and protect their surface. As for the fingers and other components, well that’s another story. Most of them will need replacing andauthentic recreation in durable, castaluminium by a local forge.

The latest estimate of the total amountrequired to is now around
£5500, so we are not quite there yet and askyou to reflect a moment on how much you careabout preserving your local heritage and built environment and then consider contributing to support their restoration and continued upkeep.Please note any monies received that take us beyond our target will be contribute to their ongoing maintenance.

If you – and/or your local business*- wouldlike to donate:
Either – contact John Davey for bank detailsand reference any BACS
donation you wish to make ‘Shoscombe FP.’(Details below).
Or – make a cash donation, however humble, and pop it in an envelope marked ‘ShoscombeFP’ with your name and deliver to Mary Bon. (Details below).
Thank you – and/or your local business – inadvance for any financial
support you can give!

*The intention is now that, once complete, all residents, interested parties, parish and localward councillors, and commercial donors will be invited to a presentation on the ShoscombeFingerpost Restoration Project and ‘afternoon tea’ at the village hall.

***Commercial donors will have the opportunity to present their
businesses through a rolling presentation onthis occasion.***

Fingerpost Working Group Funding

Contacts:
(for payment by BACS) John Davey

johndavey10@aol.co.uk

07568 386220

(for payment by CASH) Mary Bon
Elm View Cotage, White Hill, Shoscombe:

07399 431881

Bring Back the Voles!

There used to be a thriving population of water-voles on the Wellow Brook, but between the mink and changes in farming practice, they’ve been gone from our beautiful valley for some decades now. But there is an opportunity to bring them back.

The Wellow Brook Fly Fishers Syndicate, of which I’m a member, has finally received some compensation money from the pollution incident when an upstream farmer’s slurry tank collapsed and thousands of gallons of raw cow muck ran down the river. This devastated the brook, killing many of its aquatic inhabitants and threatening the survival of our club.

We intend to spend the money improving the ecology and amenity of the river over the next few years. You may have seen that we’ve started work on the section upstream of Stony Littleton Bridge to allow a bit more light into the river, and promote an uneven age profile of bank-side trees and vegetation which is good for wildlife. We have been doing monthly Riverfly invertebrate surveys to monitor the health of the brook and can report that it is recovering well.

One of the things we think it would be wonderful to achieve, with the support of both Shoscombe and Wellow villages, is to reintroduce the water-voles that should be there. We’ve consulted Derek Gow, the national water-vole expert, and he’s assessed the river and given us a plan of action. It’s quite a bit of work and may take a year or two, but if we can get a little help, we believe it can be done.

What we would like to do, is to form a small water-vole group to make this happen. If you would like to help, or to know more about the project, would you please email me: click on my email address:  rod@burnthousefarm.co.uk

Rod Humphris

Click on further links below for further information:​
www.watervoles.com
www.wellowbrookflyfishers.co.uk/habitat-works/

Discounted Heating Oil prices from Wellow Oil Group

Crude oil prices rose by nearly 100% in 2008 and whilst they have fallen back they are likely to continue to rise in the future.
The group has established a Group Buying Scheme for heating oil purchases here in Wellow.

We obtain discounts on the price of heating oil by grouping together a number of oil deliveries from a single supplier.
​By delivering to a group of houses in one tanker delivery rather than by separate journeys we can offer price discounts to you and help the environment by reducing the number of tanker deliveries to Wellow.

Once you have joined the scheme all we request is that you should provide details of your oil delivery needs before the beginning of each month either by telephone, e-mail or directly to the Wellow organiser. We then collate the group delivery requirements, go out to tender and arrange for the supply of heating oil to your home. Whilst a specific discount cannot be quoted at this time, due to the volatility of oil prices, we generally get a saving of anywhere between 2p to 5p per litre. On the basis of an annual use of 1500L per year you could save between £30 and £75 a year and importantly for our environment the number of tanker deliveries into Wellow is reduced considerably.

We do hope you will be interested and, if so, please complete the details below and return them to Richard Holland, Wellhope Knowe, Station Road, Wellow or e-mail richard@cromwellow.myzen.co.uk or telephone 01225 833348. Thank you.