Skip to content Skip to left sidebar Skip to footer

Annual Parish Meeting 2021 – Village Lake Report

The Lake subcommittee consists of 5 members: Chairman (Mike Wilding), 2 parish councillors (Graham Valentine & Michele Rigby), plus Lisa Willis and Nick Cartwright.  We meet at approximately 3 monthly intervals, manage the Lake and carry out monthly Lake inspections, which record the condition of various aspects of the Lake, and deal with any actions required.

  • CALOR RURAL COMMUNITY FUND: Due to the Covid 19 epidemic, expenditure of the £5000 grant for ecological, educational & recreational work at our Village Lake, has slowed down and we still have around £750 left in the fund, to spent next year. In addition to 2019/20 items of expenditure, this year we have achieved, despite the epidemic restrictions:
  • Purchase (from Marmax) and installation of the pond dipping platform (by James Harris Contracting)
  • Purchase and installation of Owl Box (Glos Barn Owl Trust) and camera equipment (by volunteers)
  • Purchase, assembling, floating out and anchoring of floating island (by volunteers). Lake is 7m deep!
  • Installation of bat box (by volunteers)
  • Purchase of gauge board to record ground water/lake water levels, and survey to establish an Ordnance Datum level at the location, so that water level above mean sea level can be read. (awaiting installation)
  •  VOLUNTEERS: During the year we had to limit volunteer work to lone working and family groups to comply with Covid 19 restrictions, primarily working on general maintenance such as clearing overhanging branches and undergrowth, mowing the path & installing anti slip strips to the the boardwalk. In September, we applied a protective OSMO coating the boardwalk, making it less slippery in the wet and prolonging its live.
  • LAKE SECTION ON THE NEW VILAGE WEBSITE: The Lake has a section on the new village website. It will mean that news, volunteer morning dates, and photos/sightings etc.. can be viewed more easily. We have a blog set up so that sightings of wildlife can be recorded, including those from motion sensitive night cameras. A little grebe nested in a fallen willow tree in the spring and produced two chicks.  We will now be moving over to make use of the new village website.  A whiteboard is still set up at the entrance to the Lake, especially geared at children recording what they see.  Any assistance with posting Lake information onto the new website would be welcomed.
  • ROPE HANDRAIL TO BOARDWALK: In September, when Covid 19 restrictions were low, about 20 villagers turned out, suitably masked and socially distanced, to thread the 50mm diameter rope (supplied by Chatham Dockyard Historic Ropeworks), through the oak posts (supplied by Hailey Wood Sawmills), which had already been bolted to the boardwalk’s longitudinal timber beams.  The cost of this was kindly borne by Helen Sweet, in memory of her late husband John.
  • WILDFLOWER MEADOW: The idea of creating a wildflower meadow was always in our 3 year plan, and in December we applied for a grant from the Lower Mill Estate section 106 fund, which is administered by CDC. After a period of 3 months negotiation, we understand from CDC that they have a mind to award us the grant, subject to rubber stamping by the other parties who need to give approval.  If successful, the work will be carried out by an experience landscape contractor, who has helped us with our application, but there will be general maintenance work required by our volunteers.
  • ANNUAL BUDGET:  We work on an annual budget of about £1050 per year from SKPC

Mike Wilding                                              Chairman – SKVL Management Subcommittee      April 2021