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Author: The Editor

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Ash trees in Lower Woods

Lower Woods is one of the largest ancient woodlands in the south-west of England and is perfect for people who like to explore and to get deep into nature. It comprises 23 separate woods whose boundaries have remained unchanged for several centuries and a stretch of the Little Avon river runs through the nature reserve.

At almost 300 hectares (700 acres), Lower Woods is the largest Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust nature reserve and is jointly managed with Avon Wildlife Trust. It is one of the largest ancient woodlands in the south-west of England. A visit to Lower Woods is to go back in time.  It comprises 23 separate woods whose boundaries have remained unchanged for several centuries, with some areas reflecting the landscape during the Medieval era, around 500 years ago.

Ash trees in Lower Woods have been affected by a fungal disease called Ash-dieback. There is a risk infected ash tree’s limbs will become brittle and break, falling onto walkways. GWT puts visitor safety first and we are taking pre-emptive action to avoid risks to visitors. Please take care when walking through the wood and please bear with us as we work to make the woods as safe as possible.

The photos show the cut tree trunks being loaded onto lorries for use as firewood. Also a huge pile of brash which will be chipped on site and used as biomass at a power station.

Chris Davies

Lower Wood
Lower Wood
Lower Wood

Tomb Repairer

Tomb Talk

A Review on An Illustrated talk and tour by Mr Graham O’Hare

Last night Mr Graham O’Hare gave his magic lantern show, talk and then tour of the newly repaired Tombs in the Churchyard. Now fully stabilised, repaired, rebuilt and repointed. Graham talked about different types of tombs, how they were constructed, the different ways to repair them and why they led to problems in the levels of the churchyard. A fascinating talk by a man who knows his stuff!

What’s more we had an abundant, bountiful and splendiferous selection of Gloucestershire Foods laid on absolutely FREE. A sort of Heavenly “all you can eat buffet”.

With the excellent displays of historical information about the Tombs we all now know what to look for when shopping around for our own Family Table Tomb!.

Doggy DNA

Doggy DNA

DNA Protected is supported by Gloucestershire Constabulary

We are seeing a rise in the thefts of not only ‘working’ dogs but also treasured pets which are then ransomed back to the owner or used for breeding purposes. There have also been instances where owners who have advertised the loss of a dog, have been asked for cash for the return of the animal but when money is paid, it transpired that the criminal was never in possession of the dog and it was just a scam to obtain the cash.

Better than Data Chips

We have all seen on TV that criminals have been caught as a result of their DNA being found at a crime scene. DNA like fingerprints are unique to an individual and the same applies to animals, in particular to your dog. Their DNA is unique to them and cannot be altered or removed like a data chip.

It is easy and straight forward to obtain the DNA from your dog, a simple mouth swab is used to collect the sample, which is sent to the laboratory where the swab is analysed to generate the DNA profile. The DNA profile is then added to the Forensic Dog DNA Database.

The problem has always been how to identify an animal positively when it is recovered into Police possession, DNA now give’s a reliable and positive result to that question, which can be used in court. This is a positive way of identifying your dog and getting it back to you should it be lost or worse happens and it gets stolen.

The video above is a short video showing how the sample is taken. The DNA swabbing kits are available from:

The Forensic Dog DNA Database


For more information please contact Simon Bailey 01452 754630 or via email

Your Street Needs You

Your street needs YOU

Your Street needs YOU!

Without breaking any rules, Stinchcombe Speed Watch has been busy throughout the pandemic.  Following our Committee meeting on 2nd July, here is our latest news.

Speed Monitoring on The Street

Community speed watch monitoring recently began on The Street.  It is vital as a way of demonstrating our community’s commitment to tacking the speeding problem.  Without that evidence we may not get approval to use a vehicle-activated sign at locations on The Street.  Enforcement monitoring by the Police, although very welcome, is not a substitute for the involvement of residents.

Call for volunteers

We desperately need some more volunteers to assist Trudy and Cherry.  Taits Hill Road veterans are currently helping out, but we can’t expect them to do that long term. Come on all you public-spirited residents of The Street!  All it takes is a few minutes training and as little as one hour a month.  The timing of the sessions is flexible – weekdays or weekends, daytime or evenings before dusk.  Our new speed gun is much lighter than the old ones.  And abuse from motorists has really not been a problem.  In fact, we get the thumbs up more often than the finger.

Please contact  our Co-ordinator Ava if you can help.

Speed Watch “Good Practice” Meeting 29th July

Together with District Cllr Catherine Braun, we’ve been instrumental in setting up this online meeting.  Our County Councillor, District Councillors, high level Police and Highways representatives and people from other local parishes will be attending.  We intend to use the meeting to help fine tune our imminent applications for 1) a vehicle-activated sign and 2) a speed limit review for the bottom end of Berkeley Road.

Automated Traffic Survey on Taits Hill Road (19th – 25th May)

This was funded privately by Committee members to support our application for a vehicle-activated sign.  The data came in extremely handy for our detailed and critical comments on the proposed Taits Hill Road development.  We want to raise  £250 to do the same on The Street.

AGM

Our first AGM will be held at the Village Hall on Wednesday 29th September, starting at 7.30 pm. Save the date if you have an interest in road safety in Stinchcombe.

Open Gardens 2021

Open Gardens 2021 final result

Everyone involved and everyone who came, all said that DESPITE the vagaries of the Great British weather, the Hidden Gardens of Stinchcombe was a great success this year.

Over a dozen gardens of all types, sizes and varieties were open over the two days and showed off the village to the public. Whether Residents from Stinchcombe just turning out and supporting others in the village, or people who had travelled from afar (and it some cases it was from afar!), everyone enjoyed the Open Gardens. Despite the rain!

In fact, it was by far the most successful Open Gardens to date. One person in fact emailed today with the following:

“Thank you so much for organising such a wonderful Open Gardens. We visited on Saturday and Sunday – and managed all the gardens. Completely bowled over, and learned lots. Great to meet the owners – that added to the pleasure. Thank you also to your team: we enjoyed a tea on Saturday, delicious cake, and on Sunday we had to make a dash to the car at 4.30 as it really pelted down. So we missed our Sunday tea.”

In the end, (including some generous donations) we raised just under £3,000 towards the Open To All project by the “Friends of St Cyrs” for a disabled Access to the Church. This is over double the amount raised in 2019 when the last “Open Gardens” was held.

Thank-you to those, who opened their Gardens, to those who helped with the teas and cakes, who baked cakes, and to those others who stepped forward to help make the village look good.

BASRAG

BASRAG

Berkley and Sharpness Residents Action Group

SDC are required to accommodate 12,760 new houses between 2020 – 2040. Of these 5,223 are already planned but of the remaining 7,537 they propose to accommodate 2,400 (31%) in a so called “garden village” between Berkeley and Sharpness. In addition a further 490 houses will be accommodated on smaller sites in the area. A second phase to the “garden village” is planned to follow with a further 2,600 houses by 2050.

With developments already agreed, the total number of new houses in the Berkeley and Sharpness area will be over 5,500.

To put this in context this would be a new town approximately 5 times the size of Berkeley. If you include existing houses in the Berkeley -Sharpness area it would form an urban area similar in size to Cam and Dursley .

An action group called BASRAG (the Berkeley and Sharpness Action Group) representing the concerns of local people about development between Berkeley and Sharpness has been formed. We are concerned about Stroud District Council’s proposals in their Local Plan Review for a ‘growth point’ between Sharpness and Berkeley in a so-called “garden village” of 5,000 houses. The group was formed following locally organised residents’ meetings held in both Sharpness (Dec 2018) and Berkeley (Jan 2019).

Request from BASRAG

  • Read their www site at BASRAG
  • Send in a response to the Planning Inspector and have your say by Wednesday 21st JULY