Water Leaks - Sutton Wick Lane and Newman Lane, Drayton

A resident telephoned Thames Water on 4th October to find out about the leaks on the road to Drayton by Sutton Wick Lane and Newman Lane.  Apparently both have been inspected and work is due to begin on the Newman Lane junction on 16th to 18th October and there may be traffic control there.  The other one is awaiting permission from the council to do 'out of hours ' work to cause less disruption of traffic.

Get ready for Autumn with extra Garden Waste Collections

From South and Vale District Councils:

Residents across southern Oxfordshire who are signed up for brown bin collections can put out twice as much garden waste during one week this month.

South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse district councils are giving those who are part of the paid-for service the opportunity to put out the equivalent of one extra bin’s worth of garden waste (around three large bin bags) during:

⦁     week commencing 16th October - Vale of White Horse

⦁     week commencing 23rd October - South Oxfordshire

Residents should leave their extra garden waste out in bin liners or sacks beside their brown bins on their usual collection day during these weeks.  Trade waste bags cannot be accepted.

Cllr Tony Harbour, cabinet member for waste at South Oxfordshire District Council, said: “The garden waste service is very popular and this is a little thank you to our residents for all their efforts with recycling.  We’d like to encourage everyone to make use of the larger collection.”

Cllr Charlotte Dickson, cabinet member for waste at Vale of White Horse District Council, said: “With the autumn leaves falling, it’s a good time to give residents this extra service and we hope they find it helpful.  It’s a perfect opportunity to get their gardens ready for winter.”

Stonehill Community Gardens - September News

We would like to share our mixed fundraising news:

Our Crowdfunder wasn't as successful as we would like and didn't meet our target, although we did raise just over £300 and would like to give a massive thank you to all those who contributed.  If you missed out and would like to contribute, we still have our own Stonehill Fruit trees for sale at £20 each and honey available to buy each Wednesday at our garden sessions.  Order your Stonehill Fruit Tree now (Apple, Pear, Plum, Cherry, Gage, Damson, Quince available).  We have however, received a small grant from Oxfordshire Community Foundation - thank you! ... as well as a grant from Awards for All Lottery funding.  These funds will enable us to complete many activities on site - see below.

Funding for Groups to visit the garden for FREE - Thanks to the grant from Oxfordshire Community Foundation, we have funding for 20 groups to visit the garden for free - if you know a group who may benefit from a relaxing or educational point of view, please get in touch.  Please feel free to pass this on to anyone in a local group.

Forest Garden designers in the making - Would you like to design a Forest Garden?  Do you know about Trees or edible shrubs and perennials?  We now have funding for the plants for our Forest Garden and need to get them ordered.  We would like to invite you to our tea and cake design sessions.  Below are some pictures from our recent Forest Garden Design course - the designs from which will be the start of our discussions.  Sign up here.

Polytunnel and Shelter - As part of our lottery funding, we will be constructing a large polytunnel for year round growing, and a shelter for our outdoor kitchen using natural materials.  We will be building a roundhouse timber frame and using innovative methods of building with natural materials for the walls.  Take part in our workshops.

Corporate Volunteering - A division of Amey joined us at the end of August and they worked like troopers!  Everyone pitched in with various tasks around the garden - including moving our self-watering polytunnel into place - pictures below.  If you're looking for something local and different for your corporate volunteering hours, we have the following activities available this Autumn, on a first come first served basis:

⦁     Polytunnel construction

⦁     Woodland walk creation

⦁     Raised bed construction

We need people power and you get to enjoy a day outdoors, within nature and learning new skills.    Contact us here to enquire.

Apple Pressing - Thank you to Abingdon Carbon Cutters for running an Apple pressing day at the garden recently!  Only 50 bottles available at £3 - buy on a Wednesday at the garden or contact us.  Grown and pressed at Stonehill.  We will be closing for some of this Winter whilst it is cold, and will be confirming dates in our next newsletter.  There are many ways in which you can support us, both at the garden and away from it, get in touch if you would like to be involved in a small or a big way.  Our Honey, Fruit and Vegetables are sold by donation every Wednesday from the garden 10am - 4pm.

River Walk to Tesco's - update

We were pleased to see that the Vale's contractors have now removed the rusty old barbed wire and posts from along the river walk to Tescos.  There had been concern that the wire could cause injury as it was partially hidden by undergrowth.  We have asked them to look at the river path itself as it seems that more cracks are opening up in some places.  We'll update when we have more news about this.

PCSO's

We were very pleased that two PCSOs, Emma and Jo, were able to stop by our July meeting for half an hour or so.  Their time with us was appreciated as they have to cover a wide area in this part of Oxfordshire.  Residents told them about some of their concerns, mainly parking at junctions obscuring sight lines and the occasional speeding car.  The PCSOs told us that our two estates seem to have more visits from unlicensed scrap metal dealers and suspicious collectors than other areas in Abingdon, but on the other hand, we are the ‘best’ in Abingdon for reporting these suspicious door-to-door collectors.  Of course, some of these callers are genuine (for example, people collecting our newsletter subscriptions!!) but others are not.  We were told that the Police had recently taken one unlicensed door-to-door scrap metal dealer to Court.  If you are concerned about the genuineness of a door-to-door caller, just ring 101, the non-emergency Police number.

If residents would like contact from Abingdon neighbourhood team for questions or concerns (incidents cannot be reported through this channel) then they can email at:

abingdonneighbourhoodpoliceteam@thamesvalley.pnn.police.uk

Flu Jabs - Marcham Road Health Centre Patients

Patients of Marcham Road Health Centre, who are aged 65 or over plus those patients who have serious long term health conditions can get their annual flu jabs on the following dates:

Sunday 17th September between 4pm and 5pm

Saturday 23rd September between 2pm and 3pm

Sunday 8th October between 4pm and 5pm

For more information see www.marchamroadhealthcentre.co.uk

Thames Valley Police - Bike Thefts

We have received increased reports of bike thefts in the Abingdon area.  Please consider the following crime prevention advice that may help keep your bike safe and secure:

1.    Always lock your bike even if you are leaving it just for a couple of minutes!

2.    Chain your bike to a non-moveable item like a bike rack

3.    Use a good quality chain or D-Lock

4.    Lock your bike in a well-lit area

5.    Lock any quick release wheels

6.    Remove any lights from your bike and take them with you

7.    Have your bike postcode marked so that if it is stolen it can be identified and returned to you

8.    Even lock your bike at home when it is in a shed or garage

If you would like any further advice on bike marking and security please contact you neighbourhood policing team by emailing AbingdonTownNHPT@thamesvalley.pnn.police.uk or calling 101.

If you have seen any suspicious looking people or vehicles in the area or have any information relating bike thefts please call the Police via the 24 hour non-emergency telephone number 101.

Alternatively if you have information but wish to remain anonymous, please call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 or online by visiting www.crimestoppers-uk.org.  No personal details are taken, information is not traced or recorded and you will not go to court.

Stonehill Community Gardens - August News

We had a wonderful event last Wednesday despite the weather, with over 30 visitors.  A huge thanks to members of DAMASCUS, Styleacre, Archway Foundation, Abingdon Carbon Cutters and more for showing your support.  We sold over £100 worth of our veg and honey, herb plants and pick your own bags, we enjoyed fantastic good produced by all of us from the garden, had music from Hannah, fascinating talks on our bees by David Busby, garden tours, tumble winners and we launched our Crowdfunder Campaign!!

Crowdfunder Campaign - Now live, there are lots of exciting perks to entice you to support us, and great gift ideas from workshop places to afternoon tea and seed pack.  You can support us from as little as £3, and if you don't want a perk, there is a donation button where you can donate anything from £1 upwards.  Visit our campaign page now.

Corporate Volunteering - If you're looking for something local and different for your corporate volunteering hours, we have the following activities available this Autumn on a first come first serve basis:

⦁     Polytunnel Construction

⦁     Woodland Walk Creation

⦁     Raised Bd Construction

We need people power and you get to enjoy a day outdoors, within nature and learning new skills.  Contact us here to enquire.

Compost Toilet officially opened!! - A massive thanks to Graham and other volunteers for completing the Compost Toilet ready for our Harvest Meal event.  It is a pleasure to use, and needs no power or external water to operate.  Thank you to Oxford Wood Recycling for supplying the sawdust!  There are many other ways in which you can support us at the garden and away from the garden, so do get in touch if you would like to be involved in a small or a big way.  If you haven't been to the garden for a while or have never been, come and see how much its grown - we're calling it the 'vegetable jungle'.  We're there on Wednesdays 10am - 4pm.

Plastic Bags can now be used to line Food Waste Bins

Residents in South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse can now use plastic bags to line their food waste bins and caddies.

Food waste is collected every week and taken to Agrivert’s anaerobic digestion plant near Wallingford to be recycled into gas for electricity and fertiliser for local farmland.

The processing plant is now able to accept thin plastic bags, such as carrier bags, bread bags, paper wrappings, or normal pedal bin liners. Residents can also continue to use compostable bags or newspapers to line their caddies and bins, or put food straight in without any liner.

Any bags used as liners will be removed at the processing plant and sent to an Energy Recovery Facility to be turned into energy.

Cllr Tony Harbour, Cabinet Member for Waste at South Oxfordshire District Council, said: “We know that compostable bags can be expensive and easily tear, so it’s great news that the processing plant can now take plastic bags.

“We are very grateful to our residents for their efforts in recycling – which have helped our district to achieve the highest recycling rates in the country. We are always looking for opportunities to work with our partners to improve services for our residents and this is a good example of this.”

Cllr Charlotte Dickson, Cabinet Member for Waste, said: “We want to make recycling as easy as possible for our residents, so we very much welcome the extra option of using plastic bags as caddy liners.

“We are one of the top recyclers in the country, but we still throw away a significant amount of food waste, with a recent review showing that around 30 per cent of the waste put out in the grey rubbish bins was food waste that could have been recycled. We would like to encourage everyone to use their food waste bins and thank all those that already do – it makes a real difference.”

All cooked and uncooked food can be put into food waste bins. Residents are advised that plastic retail packaging, or anything other than food waste, should not be put in. For example, bacon should be removed from its plastic packet and fruit taken out of punnets.

During 2016/17, 10,024 tonnes of food waste was collected and sent for recycling in South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse.

For further information about food waste recycling and other household waste and recycling collections, see the councils’ websites:

www.southoxon.gov.uk/waste andwww.whitehorsedc.gov.uk/waste or call 03000 610610.

Stonehill Community Gardens - July News

The event is FREE and will be a celebration of everything we have achieved this year.  Don't forget to bring your plants for our plant swap!!

The Garden in July - The garden is teeming with flowers and life and vegetables bursting at the seams!  We'll be enjoying a lot of it at our Harvest Meal event on Wednesday - join us from 4pm to 8pm to celebrate the year, all we have achieved and all we have to look forward to.  Here is a picture of just some of the marrow and squash picked this week!  We will have produce for sale at our event, so bring your shopping bags and come ready to fill them with edible goodies.  Stonehill honey will also be on sale.

Corporate Volunteering - We have our first group of corporate volunteers coming in August.  If you have Corporate Volunteering hours to use up this summer, consider coming to Stonehill to help us - we need people power and you get to enjoy a day outdoors, within nature and learning new skills.

Crowdfunder Campaign - We will be launching our crowdfunder campaign at our event - we're counting on your support to get us through the next couple of months whilst we wait to hear on funding applications in progress.  There will be many exciting ways in which to support us, with lots of goodies on offer.  There are many other ways in which you can support us, at the garden and away from the garden, so do get in touch if you would like to be involved in a small or a big way.

We hope to you on Wednesday to enjoy some food together.