GOING GREEN – November 2024
Think Resilience is the name of a brilliant course I did during Lockdown which was all about how we should become cohesive communities to work through the difficulties we are likely to face due to changes in our climate. Therefore I was pleased to be invited to attend a talk given by the lead of Oxfordshire’s Emergency Planning Unit about the Joint Oxfordshire Resilience Team. Carol MacKay described the work she and her team of six do to cover emergencies and incidents that occur throughout the whole county.
Flooding is obviously a major concern especially currently as we have the highest ground water for 14 years. However the incidents that happen during floods are not always just caused by excess rainwater. She described how they had to evacuate all the residents of a care home at risk of serious flooding one Christmas Eve. All this was caused by mindless vandals who had blocked a rainwater culvert with shopping trolleys during heavy rain.
We learnt that all water including puddles during flooding has sewage in them – so keep children and pets away. Also not to drive through floodwater without checking the depth. 15 centimetres is enough to wash a car away.
It is not just floods that JORT deal with, but many unexpected things such as unexploded bombs and ‘souvenirs’ of the war that relatives have kept for years, as well as gas leaks, water shortages, loss of utilities etc.
The Planning Unit publish a very helpful leaflet on Utility Failure and the extra care assistance that you may be entitled to if you are over 65, disabled or have a child under 5. This extra assistance could include hot drinks and food, charging points, generators, bottled water delivered to your home, temporary heating and cooking appliances. Register with your service provider or for more information contact [email protected].
And here’s something that everyone can have access to should you have a power cut. You can call 105 for free and the local network operator will give you help and advice.
I am pretty sure the Town Council will follow up this talk to spread the information further with residents in the town. Having willing volunteers who know their communities well is the best help for emergency planning.
The Draft Oxfordshire Local Nature Recovery Survey has been published recently. It makes very interesting reading and they are wanting feedback from us by the 26 th November. It is available to read on Let’s Talk Oxfordshire website.
It applies to the whole of the county so not all of it is relevant to our particular location but there are lots of things we can do locally. One of the worries uppermost in many of our minds is restoring the river diversity and managing the riparian habitats. Careful management of the land alongside the riverbanks is very important to increase biodiversity, improve the water quality and act as a corridor to enable wildlife to move along rivers, banks and watercourses.
Perhaps the native hedge Greener Henley planted in Marsh Meadows last autumn will help in some way with that. Amazingly the hedge survived being underwater twice last year and looks quite happy!
Another thing the Wildlife Working group does is manage the Himalayan Balsam (which is an invasive and non-native species) in the Marsh Meadows ponds and the Cold Bath Stream. If you fancy joining us sometime at Marsh Meadows please get in touch at [email protected] – we’d be delighted to hear from you.
Did you hear that more than one third of tree species are facing extinction in the wild? (UN Biodiversity Summit COP 16 October 2024) Trees are vital for all life. They take in carbon and clean the air and importantly provide habitat for thousands of species.
A mature oak for example supports a tremendous 2,300 species – 326 of which depend entirely on oak for their survival. An oak can live for 1,000 years – just imagine how much life it would support over that time. Sadly, conservationists are becoming concerned about Acute Oak Decline which is drastically affecting mature oaks aged over 50.
Apparently the wild pear tree once common in these parts has all but disappeared. So, if you are planting a native hedge this season, why not see if you can add a wild pear (pyrus pyraster). You could help re establish this rare species in the county. Now wouldn’t that be grand?
