At our September meeting, we were lucky enough to hear from Angus Fraser, from Heat Clanfield. Like Burford, the village of Clanfield has a large proportion of houses whose energy performance is rated D or below. And, also like Burford (and so many of our Oxfordshire villages and towns) Clanfield is full of enterprising people with an extraordinary range of expertise and enthusiasm.
People in Clanfield want to heat their homes sustainably, without relying on fossil fuels. Whether the motivation is to reduce climate-wrecking emissions, save on bills or reduce the number of oil tankers coming to the village, there is an appetite for change. A heat network (also known as district heating) supplies heat from a central source to consumers, avoiding the need for individual heaters in every building.
Heat Clanfield is a project generated by One Planet Clanfield, a group that, rather like BEAGles, formed during lockdown, when people had more time to think about building a community and working together to reduce fossil-fuel emissions and protect nature.
Drawing on the talents, connections and ideas of local residents, Heat Clanfield has managed to raise enough to pay for development costs, and has now lined up funding for their next steps, with a combination of grants from central Government, County and District councils, Low Carbon hub, private investors, and community fundraising. Heat Clanfield has appointed Scene Connect, a social enterprise that helps communities take control of their own energy solutions.. Overall, the project is costed at about £8m. If you would like to know more about Heat Clanfield and their plans, you can find them at oneplanetclanfield.co.uk.
Both One Planet Clanfield and BEAGles are Community Action Groups (CAGs), and members of CAGOxfordshire, which has just published a really cheering annual report, celebrating the achievements of the county’s volunteers. Over the past year, groups in the CAG network hosted over 8,000 events and activities. They attracted 120,000 attendees and clocked in a whopping 200,000 volunteer hours. This is nearly double the outputs of the previous year, and resulted in 1,645 tonnes of non-food waste and 678 tonnes of food diverted from disposal.
If you would like to know more about some of the many different groups working in our district, including the Wychwood Forest Trust, North East Cotswolds Farmer Cluster and BEAGles, come to a conference in Warwick Hall on 9th November, organised by West Oxfordshire District Council and Wild Oxfordshire. You can book via wildoxfordshire.org.uk.
And, lastly: if you want to join in, our BEAGles meetings are on the 3rd Monday of every month, at 7.30pm. Our new venue is the Burford Baptists Church. Sometimes, we gather just for a chat and to plan our next actions, and sometimes we have a speaker. You can also get involved in other ways: repair cafés, tree-planting, litter-picking or even helping us with our social media! Get in touch at beagles.burford@gmail.com if you would like to know more.
Rosie Pearson
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